Nakadai’s zonked-outness is one of cinema’s great pleasures, and frankly I’m not uncertain that he would be perfect in any role. Or is that gushing too much?
Nakadai is a consumate actor, not to belittle Katsu, but I don’t think he has Nakadai’s breadth.
Coppola is right.
Nakadai was not nearly charismatic enough for Kagemusha and only got away with it in Ran due to the Noh theatreness that tons of people could have done. Daniel Kasman is partly right. Nakadai has this Christopher Walken-like otherworldiness thing going on that makes it hard for him to play roles that aren’t villains (Yojimbo and Sanjuro), psycho killers (The Sword of Doom), deformed (that movie where he is scarred by acid), or just plain weirdos. It’s actually more like a Keanu Reeves style, face as blank slate otherworldiness combined with Walken style weirdness.
Please don’t be offended D. Clancy, but this is probably the weirdest comparison i have ever read. Nakadai being compared with Lambert and Reeves was a surreal horror show!
I think Nakadai was a genius in Harakiri, i still remember how impressed i was with his role, i can’t even imagine that character being played by anybody else. Besides his samurai roles, he is very versatile, If we limit the examples within the Criterion releases we will find amazing performances of his in “When A Woman Ascends The Stairs,” “The Face of Another,”and Kwaidan that are far from the villainous roles he performed. Buraikan is another good example of his versatility, as well as many others…
I really don’t know much about Shintaru Katsu to opiniate about him, but Coppola’s declaration is definitely an overstatement.
I’ll refer Mr. Clancy to Harakiri and Kill! Nakadai was perfect for those films, and they certainly don’t fit those categories.
>Please don’t be offended D. Clancy, but this is probably the weirdest comparison i have ever read. Nakadai being compared with Lambert and Reeves was a surreal horror show!
In fact, is a real horror show. I would agree with Joshua W, too. Nakadai had great skills, he could play every role – if you watch “Kiru!” it is impossible to say the contrary.
who can say one would have been better in the role than the other? i think Nakadai is very good playing 2 different characters; Shingen & the thief impersonating him. i don’t think the change in cast hurts the film.
Daniel, Reeves and Nakadai, that’s an unexpected but utterly spot on comparison! That sort of “high” like distance and abstraction from the real world…
He was good in samurai genre pictures and not that bad as Shingen/his impersonator but he just doesn’t feel right in the role. Of course he is not helped by the fact that the entire movie was basically just a test run for Ran. Kurosawa had to prove that he could successfully make a large scale, big-budget that had to be both a critical and financial success. His last attempt to direct one (Tora Tora Tora) ended up with him getting fired after less than a day on set for throwing an hours long fit about the shade of white paint used.
It would be really hard to go wrong in Kill! as it is a comedic take off of Sanjuro (his weirdness adds to the fun as a normal actor would have just made fun of Mifune’s mannerisms and eccentricities) and his otherworldliness suits him in Harakiri (he doesn’t want to just kill them, he wants to make them commit suicide like some kind of almost ghostlike avenger from beyond).
Nakadai joins Christopher Walken as a person that I would not be surprised to find out is actually a Nazi genetic experiment (Christopher Walken’s backstory in A View to a Kill)
Now, I have this idea in my head of almost a Universal Soldier type movie with Reeves, Nakadai, and Walken as a team of genetically engineered otherworldy killers (they got abducted and put into a deep freeze for modifications by the US government, who has been doing this of course throughout it’s history. Nakadai can be some samurai master swordman from the 1800s, Walken from whenever, and Reeves just some random dude they found in California. You can also throw in Dolph Lundgren as a Nazi super soldier captured in WWII or something.) and are sent to fight Steven Segal, who is genetically engineered to have all the traits that Steven Segal has in all Steven Segal movies (you know how he randomly is like the world’s greatest survivalist, sword fighter, nuclear physicist, chemical weapons expert or something in all his films?). I don’t even know how I came up with that. It just happened.
Nakadai is a brilliant actor. But I love Katsu. Tough question, but in the end I’d rather just not change Kagemusha at all.
Nakadai is a very talented performer…Sword of Doom, Kwaidan, Ran and many other great film roles…but in Kagemusha….the only choice is…Toshiro Mifune…the many Kurosawa/Mifune films have proven to be the best director/actor collaboration in Japanese Cinema….Toshiro Mifune as Takeda Shingen would have been unforgetable.
I agree with Koneko. Mifune would have been the best choice. His breath of acting is wider then either Nakadai or Katsu.
On paper, it’d have to be Katsu but what is done is done.
“the many Kurosawa/Mifune films have proven to be the best director/actor collaboration in Japanese Cinema….”
That’s arguable.
Joshua W
As is widely known, the original choice for the protagonist (and the authentic Lord Shingen) was Shintaru Katsu, from the Zatoichi films. Do you believe, as Francis Ford Coppola does, that the film would have been infinitely better if Katsu had stayed in Kagemusha?
Personally, I don’t. I love Nakadai to no end, and I think he’s exactly what the role needed. Thoughts?