Kagemusha (Criterion) 01/23 Blu-ray (Rental)

When a warlord dies, a peasant thief is called upon to impersonate him, and then finds himself haunted by the warlord’s spirit as well as his own ambitions. In his late color masterpiece Kagemusha, Akira Kurosawa returns to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career—the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendor of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a historical epic that is also a meditation on the nature of power. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES Restored high-definition digital transfer, with DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 soundtrack. Audio commentary by Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince Lucas, Coppola, and Kurosawa, an interview piece from 2005 in which directors George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola discuss Kurosawa and Kagemusha Documentary from 2003 on the making of the film Image: Kurosawa’s Continuity, a piece from 1993 reconstructing Kagemusha through Kurosawa’s paintings and sketches Suntory Whisky commercials made on the set of Kagemusha Gallery of storyboards painted by Kurosawa and images of their realization on-screen Theatrical trailers and teasers PLUS: An essay by scholar Peter Grilli and an interview with Kurosawa by renowned critic Tony Rayns