Word: shingen
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...16th century Japan a thief is saved from crucifixion because he looks like Lord Shingen, a clever and determined warlord who may have the strength and wit to unite a feudal nation under his banner. It is his idea to train the criminal as his double, against the day he himself is wounded or otherwise unable to inspire his troops in battle. This, in time, the kagemusha, or "shadow warrior," successfully manages. But then the dying leader conceives the notion of having his stand-in attempt a more difficult impersonation: Shingen wants the kagemusha to take over his life entirely...
...double (played with exemplary restraint by Tatsuya Nakadai, who also plays the man he is doubling for) grows into his leadership role, acquiring the wisdom that should accompany leadership. In due course he is undone through ironic circumstances. And after that, one must witness the undoing of Shingen's clan through the misrule of his successor. Kurosawa contemplates ruin as he contemplates glory, with an objective thought as to what can be salvaged from disaster in the way of a momentary beauty, the accidental congeries of color and composition that men create as they go about their often bloody...