Shadow (new film by Zhang Yimou) has echoes of Kurosawa's Kagemusha

Yesterday, I saw the new trailer for Zhang Yimou’s latest film Shadow and it made me think about Kurosawa’s Kagemusha. Not so much in terms of style, but the story certainly seems to shadow (sorry) the Kurosawa film. Or what do you guys think?

In fact, it turns out that Yimou himself has mentioned Kagemusha as an inspiration.

I’ve had mixed reactions to Yimou’s previous films, and it seems a particularly rambling one to his film Hero that we watched some years back in the film club, but I’m quite interested in seeing this one when it comes to a screen near me.

AK never had killer umbrellas in his films. Looks interesting, but can wait to see it.

Wow, it certainly looks spectacular. I think there are echoes of Kurosawa in many of Yimou’s later films, both thematically and stylistically.

I went off Yimou somewhat as I find his recent films lack the humanity of his early work – and politically I can’t help thinking that he sold out. But they are always spectacular to watch, few directors can do spectacle quite as well as he does.