Kagemusha | 1980

For his Oscar-winning historical epic, director Akira Kurosawa chose to film at several real castles around Japan, although modern surroundings meant having to choose his camera angles carefully.

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Kagemusha was a hugely ambitious project and when finances got shaky, it was George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola who stepped in, persuading 20th Century-Fox to distribute the film and make up the shortfall. It went on to be hugely successful and to scoop the Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar.

Like Shakespeare, Kurosawa takes history and reshapes it for his own dramatic purposes. In 16th century Japan, as powerful warlords are vying for control, Shingen (Tatsuya Nakadai), leader of the Takeda clan, is persuaded to hire a double to impersonate him in public. The lookalike (also played by Tatsuya Nakadai) is a petty thief who needs to be trained in the actions and appearance of a leader..

Although three real castles were used for the production, the plot required that Shingen's castle complex needed to be a set, built for the film on the plain at the foot of Mount Fuji, near the city of Gotemba in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Not only was the landscape perfect for Kurosawa's vision, the location is conveniently only 60 miles southwest of Tokyo. The director filmed scenes for other movies here, including Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress and Ran – and even owned a villa in the area.

During the siege of 'Noda Castle', the real Shingen is shot and mortally wounded. He instructs that his approaching death be kept secret and his double – the “Shadow Warrior” – continue to impersonate him.

For the film, 'Noda' is Kumamoto Castle 1-1 Honmaru, Chuo Ward, Kumamoto, in the centre of Kyushu, Japan's Southern Island. It was built, and expanded between 1467 and 1615, known as the Sengoku period which eventually saw Ieyasu – one of the warlords seen in the film – becoming Shogun over a united Japan.

The castle was largely destroyed by fire in the 19th century but, after WWII, there was a move to rebuild it. Although some of its original wooden structures survive, the exteriors of the large and small castle towers were reconstructed in 1960 using steel-reinforced concrete.

As the mortally wounded Shingen is carried toward home in a palanquin, we see the featureless snowy slopes of Mount Fuji fill the background.

The castle of opposing warlord Nobunaga (Daisuke Ryû) is Himeji Castle, the largest in Japan and known as the 'White Heron Castle'. It stands on a bluff overlooking the town of Himeji, 33 miles west of Kobe. The first fort was built on this site in 1333 and remodelled in 1581, before being expanded to become this formidable but beautiful complex in 1609.

Not surprisingly the castle is one of Japan's top tourist attractions, a mere ten minute walk from Himeji station, from which it can be clearly seen. Himeji is also featured in Kurosawa's next film, Ran, a loose 1985 adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, as well as in the 1967 Bond movie You Only Live Twice.

The battle at 'Takatenjin' where the thief – whose name we never learn – begins to take on the cool, commanding mantle of the dead Shingen, even as he witnesses the horror of war, is staged outside Iga Ueno Castle, located on a hill in the center of the city of Iga, in the Mie Prefecture. About 50 miles east of Osaka, this one is known as the 'White Phoenix Castle'.

Incidentally, Iga Province was separated from neighbouring provinces on all sides by mountains, maintaining its autonomy by adopting the tactics of "asymmetric warfare", called 'ninjutsu'. These warrior families later became known as ninja.

The film ends with the climactic 1575 ‘Battle of Nagashino’, filmed with 5,000 extras on the Yufutsu Genya Plain to the east of the port city Tomakomai on the north island of Hokkaido. Much of the area has since been developed but part is now home to a wildlife conservation area, including the bird sanctuary of Lake Utonai-ko.

* Grateful thanks to the Sapporo Film Commission for help with this section.

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