Kagemusha is a 1980 film by Akira Kurosawa. The title is a term used for an impersonator. It is set in the Warring States era of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan. The warlord whom the kagemusha impersonates is based on daimyo Takeda Shingen, and the film ends with the climactic 1575 Battle of Nagashino. The film opens with a shot of three men, practically indistinguishable from each other: Shingen, his brother Nobukado, and a thief whom... Nobukado met by chance and spared from crucifixion, believing the thief's uncanny resemblance to Shingen would prove useful. Shingen agrees that he would prove useful as a double, and they decide to use the thief as a kagemusha. Shingen's army has besieged a castle of Tokugawa Ieyasu. When Shingen visits the battlefield to hear a mysterious nightly flute player, he is shot by a sniper. Mortally wounded, he orders his generals to keep his death a secret for three years.
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