Review of Ran (1985) by Devon B — 05 May 2009

Ran is the epic tale of Japanese Lord, who in his advancing years has decided to hand the rule of his kingdom over to his sons. He makes his oldest son the absolute ruler all of his domain, and his middle son a ruler of his 2nd castle.

But before he can get to his youngest son, the son speaks up and calls his father a fool, claiming the father's plan will destroy the kingdom. The father is outraged by his son's insolence and disowns him.

Meanwhile, the two older sons are weak-willed cowards who are easily manipulated by a shrewish wife. She's power hungry and convinces the oldest son to betray his father. When the father realizes that all the youngest son predicted has come to pass, he's overcome with remorse, and in fact is driven mad.

Although the story is loosely based on Shakespeare's "King Lear", it seems more suited to the japanese tradition of honor and respecting your parents, especially. It is revealed throughout the course of the movie that the Lord isn't a particularily sympathetic character, that his rise to power was built upon a great deal of bloodshed.

I've read that this is Kurosawa's great anti-war piece, that the war is never glorified, but the chopped off arms and the arrows in the eye sockets do at times seem gratuitous. Still, the end result of building your kingdom on the blood of others is that you will live to see it crumble.

From a filmmakers standpoint, Ran contains some of the best scenery ever put on film. Armies with different colored flags, mounted on horseback, sit atop great, misty green hills. Certain scenes seem almost like paintings.

It's a visually beautiful film that blends eastern and western myth into a great piece of cinema.