Kagemusha – Criterion Collection – Blu-ray

When a warlord dies, a peasant thief is called upon to impersonate him, and then finds himself haunted by his spirit as well as his own ambitions. With his late colour masterpiece Kagemusha, Akira Kurosawa returned to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career—the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendour of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a historical epic that is also a meditation on the nature of power.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
Restored high-definition digital transfer with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Audio commentary featuring Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince (The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa)
Lucas, Coppola, and Kurosawa (19 minutes, 2005), in which directors George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola discuss Kurosawa and their roles as executive producers of Kagemusha
A 41-minute documentary on the making of Kagemusha, part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
Image: Kurosawa’s Continuity, a new video piece that reconstructs Kagemusha through Kurosawa’s paintings and sketches
A series of Suntory Whiskey commercials made on the set of Kagemusha
A gallery of storyboards painted by Kurosawa and images of their realization on-screen
Theatrical trailers and teasers
Optional English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by scholar Peter Grilli and an interview with Kurosawa by renowned critic Tony Rayns