Kurosawa made this film after a decade of personal travail. Although he is often considered the greatest living Japanese director, he was unable to find financial backing in Japan when he first tried to make Kagemusha. He made a smaller film, Dodeskaden, which was not successful. He tried to commit suicide, but failed. He was backed by the Russians and went to Siberia to make the beautiful Dersu Uzala (1976), about a man of the wilderness. But Kagemusha remained his obsession, and he was finally able to make it only when Hollywood directors Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas helped him find
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