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The Wing Commander movie club LOVED Hard Target. It's not a movie you can explain but it sure captivated us. For the next screening, we decided to revisit a previous director. And the winner of the vote was, improbably, Akira Kurosawa! (It is becoming a running joke on the Discord that RoboCop just barely loses every competition and this was the closest yet.) So following up on our previous viewing of Seven Samurai, we will be looking at the historical epic Kagemusha from later in his career. The movie, which tells the story of the ,1575 Battle of Nagashino, was famously saved by financing from George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, both of who were indebted to Kurosawa's influence on their own successful films! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along. Note that because of the length of the movie we will start one hour early (9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific).
The Wing Commander connection, courtesy of bob, is that there's a ship seemingly named after the movie in End Run! To begin, you can learn more about references to Kurosawa himself in our coverage of Seven Samurai. But this movie was chosen because of its name! Kagemusha is the romanization of the original Japanese 影武者 which literally translates to Shadow Warrior. End Run attempts to name one of the Tarawa's escorts, the corvette, this but transliterates it as Kagimasha instead. It's your typical William Forstchen ever-so-slight naming error. But Kagimasha is an absolute googlenope with every reference being only quotes from End Run… so we're pretty confident on the intent here.
The Kagimasha is a Terran Confederation corvette. She was commanded by Captain Teng. In 2667, she was assigned as an escort ship to the TCS Tarawa as part of Strike Force Valakryie for Operation Back Lash. Teng conspired with Captain Grierson of the Intrepid to pressure Commodore O'Brien of the Tarawa to continue the mission after the strike force was sighted by the Kilrathi. During the first battle in the Kilrah System, the Kagimasha saved the Intrepid by torpedoing a Kilrathi corvette lining up for an attack run. Subsequently, Kilrathi fighters scored a hit on its main engine. The corvette then participated in an hour of bombardment of Kilrah's moon, surpressing its ground-to-space defenses. Kagimasha suffered damage during the fighting retreat, reducing shielding to 32%. Captain Teng's eye was injured during the fighting. The Tarawa swung back to cover its retreat. Intrepid and Kagimasha fought a three hour long range battle with Ralatha destroyers. The escorts were then responsible for destroying a Kilrathi orbital base. The three ships separated for a time but ultimately rendezvoused to provide navigation data for the damaged Tarawa. During the escape from the system, Kagimasha was destroyed when it was rammed by a Sartha hitting it at nearly ten thousand kilometers per second. Jason Bondarevsky reacted to the Kagimasha's destruction: "They never knew what hit them."
Do we know what the Kagimasha looks like? Maybe! If you look very, very closely at the cover of End Run you can see that there's a second Confederation capital ship in the distance. This must be either the destroyer Intrepid or the corvette Kagimasha. We think this may be the scene being adapted for the painting which suggests corvette over destroyer.
“You’ve got torpedoes inbound!” Jason shouted.
The point defense system of the Intrepid kicked into action, sending out a spray of mass-driver bolts, blowing two of the torpedoes apart, one of them striking a glancing blow as Grierson turned straight into the attack.
Jason looked over his shoulder to watch and then turning back, yanking his stick into his gut as one of the Kilrathi corvettes loomed up directly in front, diving down in an evasive roll. The ship suddenly disappeared, hit by a spread of torpedoes launched from Kagimasha, debris ricocheting out in every direction.
Breathing hard, Jason arced downward, kicking on full afterburner to avoid the wreckage, catching a brief glimpse of a Kilrathi, still alive, tumbling through space, arms flailing, mouth open in a silent scream.
He looked around and realized there was nothing around him. He had lost Doomsday in the confusion and was now heading straight toward the second moon.
Nothing else was coming up.
Was this everything they had?
He switched through the commlinks. The third Kilrathi corvette was under heavy bombardment, most of the enemy fighters engaging the Intrepid and Kagimasha, with only six breaking on through to Tarawa where four of his fighters were holding their own while the rest of the squadron continued to launch.
It's clearly not a Gilgamesh-class destroyer, at least! But isn't it wonderful how much meaning a caring artist can put into every tiny corner of a given work? When we try to quantify what AI is missing, this is exactly it. The fact that the man that painted this understood how to adapt what he knew about Wing Commander II ships and what's going on in this scene of the book to just totally create a new capital ship–one that references what we understand–is great.
Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?
Hard Target is available for rent or purchase on several of the standard streaming services, notably AppleTV in the United States. If you would like a physical copy, it was released on BluRay by Criterion in the US in 2010 and remains in print around the world. A copy is available for download from the Internet Archive. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.
How do we watch the movie together?
It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 9 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone! Please note that this week's screening starts one hour earlier than usual.
How can I help pick future movie club movies?
The movie club movies are voted on each week by the Wing Commander Discord. The poll is typically posted 24 hours before each week's screening and the next movie is announced at the end. The choices for the poll come from a master pool of Wing Commander-related movies. If you would like to suggest a film for inclusion in that pool you can post it to this thread.
