I am not certain, but I think Ran was Akira Kurosawa's last big feature. Visually, It might be his most distinctive. Being in color opens a lot of doors to cinematography, and makes it easier to see how much artistic creativity went into the sets and costumes. There is something else distinctive about Ran. It is his slowest picture. You need extreme patience to make it through this very long movie, and you also need to understand the context of the story.
Ran is Kurosawa's retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear, which many scholars say is his most difficult tragedy. The premise is identical, revolving around an old monarch who is ruined by the corruption of his sons, after he gives them power and authority. (In King Lear, they were daughters, not sons, of course.)
Ran starts and ends strongly, but the problem comes down to a huge, plodding middle section. This part of the film will really test your attention span. Kurosawa deliberately makes sure that nothing happens, because he wants to evoke one single emotion...isolation. He places his principal character (and a couple of others) in the middle of nowhere, with no story progression, music, or major dialog. There are perhaps one (or even two) too many similarly grim scenes.
The battles scenes are the biggest in Kurosawa's forty year body of work. Not only do they feature swords and spears but guns, cannons, and a cast of thousands. The interesting thing about those scenes is that Kurosawa, doesn't intend them to be rousing or exciting. Instead, there is a strange emotional feeling generated. The most memorable part of Ran is the very last sequence, which is visually brilliant and really disturbing. He makes a metaphor about the frailty of humanity by showing a blind man in a very particular place.
Ran will leave you thinking long and hard. I have not seen a film like it and I don't think I ever will. It is not my favorite Kurosawa, but it is very much worth watching.
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Strong but Sloooooooowwww
Jester and Warlord
'Ran' is the Japanese word for chaos, riot, dissension. Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece is indeed a feast of destruction and perdition, charged with symbols and powerful in pictures like it is found very rarely in today's cinema.
The dusky story is based on Shakespeare's 'King Lear'. In the film a Japanese warlord celebrates his own downfall. Kurosawa devised this with a radical film language which works with certain imageries of colors, rapid cut sequences and a sophisticated sound design. When the colorful flags of the different armies get intermixed in a battle, when the peacefully quiet wind (which carries the soundtrack) swells to a raving storm or when long wide shots suddenly segue into shots of details that follow hot on each other's heels then you realize Kurosawa's incredible style which deeply influenced the cinema worldwide.
The drawings of the characters are equally terrific. Hidetora's jester is for a certain reason always at the side of the warlord. Their relationship alters as the film continues: Jester and warlord change their roles which makes it hard to distinguish both. Just as the sky turns from blue to grey with dark clouds, the violent past of Hidetora is catching up the aging lord. His trail of murder and predation is not forgotten, the brutally conquered land still carries the old scarves of war and exploitation which now burst out again.
The viewer can take this monumental work as a warning to the destructive power of war, which is even decades later at present and beset those who seed the violence.
A film requiring patience with huge rewards for the viewer!
The 'Kurosawa' adaptation of King Lear in his film 'Ran' is a tremendous memorable film.
It is a very dramatic film with many soliloquies and dialogue, but if you are patient with it, you are treated to some of the most epic scenes of cinematic brilliance that Kurosawa made. After all it is Shakespeare and one must be patient with it if they are not a fan of the old school theatre.
Colourfull clashing armies, The lord awaiting his fate in a burning castle, a brilliant execution scene (I consider the BEST I have ever seen film ever), and the blind being left in the hands of Buddha?
While Seven Samurai will always be his perfection, Ran is more than an enjoyable movie that should be seen. Just stick with it and you'll never forget it.
Rating 9 out of 10.