TEHRAN – The restored version of the 1980 Japanese epic film “Kagemusha” directed by Akira Kurosawa will be screened at the Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) in Tehran on Thursday.

Set for screening at 6 p.m., the 162-minute movie will be shown at the Nasseri Hall of the IAF with Persian subtitles, ILNA reported.

The film is set in the Sengoku period of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class petty thief who is taught to impersonate the dying daimyō Takeda Shingen to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan.

Kagemusha is the Japanese term for a political decoy, literally meaning “shadow warrior”. The film ends with the climactic 1575 Battle of Nagashino.

It was released to critical acclaim. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival (tied with “All That Jazz”). It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and received other honors.

In 2009, the film was voted No. 59 on the list of The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.

In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked the film 10th among 69 counted winners of the Palme d'Or to date, concluding “Set against the wars of 16th-century Japan, Kurosawa's majestic samurai epic is still awe-inspiring, not only in its historical pageantry, but for imagery that communicates complex ideas about reality, belief and meaning.”

Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. With a bold and dynamic style strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Known as a hands-on filmmaker, he was heavily involved with all aspects of production as a director, writer, producer, and editor.

One of his most famous films was “Rashomon” (1950) that became the surprise winner of the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. The commercial and critical success of the film opened up Western film markets to Japanese films for the first time, which in turn led to international recognition for other Japanese filmmakers.

Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, including a number of highly regarded and often adapted films, including “Ikiru” (1952), “Seven Samurai” (1954), “Throne of Blood” (1957), “The Hidden Fortress” (1958), “Yojimbo” (1961), “High and Low” (1963), and “Red Beard” (1965). He became much less prolific after the 1960s, though his later work—including two of his final films, “Kagemusha” (1980) and “Ran” (1985)—continued to receive critical acclaim.

In 1990, Kurosawa accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was posthumously named “Asian of the Century” in the “Arts, Literature, and Culture” category by AsianWeek magazine and CNN, who cited him as one of the five people who most prominently contributed to the improvement of Asia in the 20th century.

The Iranian Artists Forum is located at Artists Park on North Mousavi Street, Taleqani Street.

SS/SAB