Which George Lucas-produced Akira Kurosawa film won the 1980 Palme d’Or? Kagemusha won the 1980 Palme d’Or at Cannes. Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese historical epic shared the prize with Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz.
The film is set during Japan’s Sengoku period and follows a petty thief recruited to impersonate the dying warlord Takeda Shingen. The deception is meant to prevent rival lords from exploiting the Takeda clan’s apparent weakness. The Japanese title means “shadow warrior,” referring to the political decoy at the story’s center.
George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola were credited as executive producers in the international version. They helped persuade 20th Century-Fox to cover a financing shortfall after Toho could not afford to complete the production. Kagemusha was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but its Cannes honor was a shared Palme d’Or rather than an exclusive win.