If there were such a term as “SamuraiScope,” this film might be its apotheosis. Arrows speeding across the screen are the vectors of space and fate in a consistently intelligent, often audacious adventure in widescreen. But director Umetsugu Inoue also finds clever ways (like shooting in pitch dark) to make his canvas small for what is essentially an intimate tale of one ill-fated individual. In Hida Province in the year 1564, a local boy, Kyonosuke, makes good when he is called into the service of Lord Yasutaka as a samurai. Soon, however, he learns that he has been selected entirely on the basis of his looks and is to be groomed as one of several “shadows” to the Lord, men who wait in the wings and then appear as exact replicas in case of need at official functions and in battle. An inviting idea, perhaps, to us in the media age, but to Kyonosuke it is a cruel joke, for when Lord Yasutaka loses an eye, so must each shadow. And Kyonosuke's very existence is called into question when he falls in love from his own heart, or what is left of it. Coming from a director who is virtually unknown to Western audiences, and pre-dating Kurosawa's Kagemusha by almost two decades, this period adventure is also a modern, almost Kafka-esque intrigue, drawing equally on questions of humanity and individual identity, and providing only doleful answers.