Ran Reviews

(OK) Even the stagey sequences are so rich and full of nternal action and gestures. The main King Learesque character goes wrong in every decision and even that he is so human and caring. The chorus around him is great, the clown, the blind boy in the edge of the abyss....

Ran is ostensibly a variation on King Lear, and possibly the greatest film adaptation of the Bard’s play. But it isn’t hard to see Kurosawa empathetically viewing his Lear, here called Lord Ichimonji, as a cipher for his own troubled twenty year existence in Japanese culture.

Kurosawa’s golden period was between 1950 and 1965, beginning with Rashomon and ending with Red Beard, and after that he fell upon hard times. Changing viewpoints in Japanese cultural and artistic identity found him slavish to Western techniques and a relic of an older filmmaking sensibility. Between 1970 and 1993 he made only seven films. Funding was particularly hard to come by and it took him a decade to assemble the funds for Ran.

So when we see the Lord Ichimonji’s fall from a plane of unassailable power to desperation and wandering in the wilderness, it isn’t hard to imagine Kurosawa feeling the same way. But it isn’t just the fall from grace and descent into uncertainty, at the time of filming, Kurosawa was 75, and Ran features a main character who is ready to step back from the main line of power and ruling, but isn’t about to settle out to pasture. Ichimonji is assessing his legacy, and it's easy to see this towering master of cinema doing much of the same and filling in a bit of autobiography in the sympathy we ultimately feel for the mad warlord.

This sense of autobiography merges with King Lear to produce a heightened epic variation of the story. Lear was already a grand tragedy, the destruction of a household by interior greed and an unquenchable thirst for power, and Ran finds a way to up the stakes even more.

In broad strokes the stories are very much the same, but in finite details things have been changed, characters cut or merged, and another owes more to a character out of Macbeth than anyone in Lear. Both tell the story of an elderly monarch distributing the wealth and lands to his three children, the banishment of the youngest child who loves him enough to speak out against his questionable decision-making, the fighting which not only tears the kingdom apart but sees the destruction of the family, and the monarch’s descent into madness as the he aimlessly wanders the lands seeing the decay that his pride, arrogance and power brought about.

Lear goes mad because he realizes too late that the only child who loved him questioned him, and he banished her away. Ran features that element of the story, but Ichimonji’s madness has more to do with the realization that his three sons are going to destroy each other in order to gain the most power/land. As a man who spent his entire life going out and conquering what he wanted, he has now begun to get karmic retribution for his sins and arrogance.

The acting is solid across the board, and by and large, played fairly straight. The two notable exceptions to this rule are Tatsuya Nakadai as Lord Ichimonji and Mieko Harada as Lady Kaede. Tatsuya Nakadai begins his performance in a more controlled and realistic manner, but once his character begins a descent into madness it takes on a more highly theatrical and Noh-like manner. His face becomes heavily painted to resemble a chalky living-ghost appearance and his gestures become grander and he throws himself about violently. It could dip easily into overacting, but somehow both Nakadai and Kurosawa manage to anchor it enough in the grand scheme of the film to make it work seamlessly. The fall of his character is so great, the ultimate devastation of his house and legacy so sweeping, that a highly theatrical manner of acting works.

The best performance belongs to Mieko Harada as Lady Kaede, a snake in the lotus flower if there ever was one. She’s more Lady Macbeth than anything else, and Harada makes the most of her limited screen-time. I saw this film and figured she was nominated or had won several arms full of awards, but she was empty-handed. I consider this one of the great injustices of the 1985 awards season. The scene where she seduces her brother-in-law alone is both utterly transfixing and terrifying. She uses every trick in her arsenal to get him to conform to her will-power. Not only sex, which she does use, but a hysterical fake crying fit in which she is so bored by own forced emotions that she distracts herself which squashing a bug instead. Lady Kaede is a by-product of Ichimonji’s careless war-mongering, and she has had a lifetime to fester her wounds and plan her revenge – it is she who sets up the annihilation of the household and meets her death with acceptance that her goal has been accomplished.

Kurosawa’s directorial eye was frequently grandiose in films like Seven Samurai or Throne of Blood, and this film is no different. The battle scenes, of which there are many, are filmed from a god’s-eye perspective, steadily observing the violence and bloodshed with no cuts to spare us some of the gorier details – a quick scene of a soldier holding his own cut-off arm lingers in the imagination as its treated as a small detail in a sweeping camera movement across the remains of a battle.

And the costumes are where most of the color comes from as the landscape is frequently a barren vista, monochromatic castle interiors or a scorched battlefield. The costumes appear drunk on color and textures, emotionally coded to the character’s state or nature, they make the film more grand by simply being the garments draped across this band of miserable characters.

Shakespeare is a malleable artist, and it’s a commonly held belief that every generation gets a Shakespearean adaptation that it deserves – the 40s had Olivier’s veddy British, atmospheric Hamlet, 60s had the romantic, doomed, youthful Romeo and Juliet, and the 80s got this masterpiece in which a powerful man gets knocked asunder by the sins of his greed.

Ran is a very heartfelt, impactful, experiencing and even quite a shocking motion picture that is made by a legendary filmmaker. Ran is a real epic story that is typical of the language spoken and the same with the settings, cinematography, costumes and make-up within the nation of where it was filmed as well as the epic genre. I was blown away by how good each of those filming qualities was. I think this film is adapted from Shakespeare's famous play King Lear. It isn't a directed adaptation of the play but it is the closest it can be. This film is an epic that it very action-packed and is filled with raw emotion. My DVD I have at home of it is a 12A/PG-13 DVD and I cannot believe it was either a 15/R or 18/R-17 because it was a very gruesome and graphic story. The blood isn't that real but you can just imagine how hard the arrows and the swords hit the people. It is a bit like Sweeney Todd blood but that blood was more realistic. Some unrealistic effects aren't always bad, they can make a film a classic in which Ran definitely is. I loved the action scene where Hidertora's palace and his people were attacked.


The acting was good from Tatsya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji. Hidetora is an aging warlord who after spending his life consolidating his empire, decides to abdicate and divide his Kingdom amongst his three sons Taro, Jiro and Saburo. Hidetora is like a film interpretation of King Lear apart from that King Lear has three daughters not three sons. I have never read the King Lear novel nor seen any film adaptations from the play. The performances were all just awesome that were all typical epic kinds of characters.


Akira Kurosawa was an director who was one of the few experts in the old days where people were classic epic filmmakers. I can only think of Kurosawa and the late David Lean. Kurosawa's determination towards his epic films including Ran was very experiencing. Kurosawa's 39-year wife died during the production of Ran but carried on filming about a day after mourning of her death. Kurosawa's epic style made this one very similar to The Seven Samurai but not as good as that though. The script was good with such powerful and thought-provoking moments because of the heartbreaking betrayal and also of the other events that occur within Ran. Ran is one of the best epic films of the 1980s without a doubt.


It isn't my favourite Akira Kurosawa film. I do still really like The Seven Samurai more. Ran is a film that is mixed into different kinds of genres with the way it was filmed and what kind of qualities it had. It is an absolutely typical film of the nation it is in. The Japanese and Chinese do very similar sorts of films regarding similar sorts of plots and this is one of the best of those films definitely. Ran is probably Akira Kurosawa's most underrated films especially when it is one of his most hardworking motion pictures that he ever did. Kurosawa and Lean are the masters of epic films. Masterpiece!!

Before movies like Crouching Tiger/ Hidden Dragon & Hero came along & added the artistically flair fantasy elements to these types of epic movies, there was Ran. Some of the most beautiful & grand visuals ever in an Akira Kurosawa film. The fact that his name was associated with this project guaranteed this film's sweeping quality. And, the added high budget seemed to compromise his vision not in the slightest. Instead, it seemed to open up the potentiality that Mr. Kurosawa had holding in his already abundant visionary dreams.
Definitely my favorite of his works.

"Man is born crying. When he has cried enough, he dies."

To movie aficionados and cinema enthusiasts, Akira Kurosawa's name is synonymous with the title of 'cinematic god'. It's irrefutable that throughout Kurosawa's career (spanning over several decades) the director has created wonderful narratives and absolutely magnificent visual delights. To some people Kurosawa is the greatest thing to hit film since light. In this cynical and incredulous modern film-going society, neophyte students of film occasionally harbour doubts regarding the existence of this so-called cinematic god. Ran is an epic film capable of making believers out of anyone. The film is a remarkable visual spectacle composed of beautiful cinematography and gorgeous, oversaturated colours. Kurosawa is a filmic guru who situates his sombre narrative in a world full of opulent nature panoramas, all shimmering fields of vernal green grass and cerulean skies of deepest summer. Even after watching Ran, one can close their eyes and still see the kaleidoscope of colours...swirling and pulsing in a beautiful maelstrom. This is a testament to the masterful moviemaking of Akira Kurosawa.

The narrative conveyed in Ran is fundamentally an adaptation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. This brilliantly conceived re-telling of the classic tale magically mixes Japanese history with Shakespeare's timeless plot. The film is saturated with profound themes of faith, love, trust, deception, loyalty and humanity in an epic tour de force. Interestingly, the film is generally tagged as an adaptation of King Lear, but it didn't start out that way. There is a famous story of a 16th century warlord whose sons were revered for their loyalty. Kurosawa wanted to turn the story on its head, showing that ambitious sons cannot be trusted. He started writing the script in 1976, with the first draft completed in 1978. At some point in early development either Kurosawa or his collaborators realised the unmistakable parallels to Lear. The final version therefore drew more inspiration from Shakespeare's play, although Ran differs significantly from King Lear in terms of characters and some plot points.

Akira Kurosawa's Ran is set in the Sengoku period. Said period was an era of civil wars in Japan that preceded the Shogunate. The time was characterised by much turmoil and lack of stability, hence the title of the film which means "chaos". This grand tragedy centres on the aging warlord Hidetora Ichimonji (Nakadai). With his golden years behind him, Hidetora decides to abdicate and split his land evenly between his three sons. Each son is to be allocated a piece of land and a castle. Hidetora wishes to live his remaining years visiting each of his sons and staying in their castles. His two eldest sons are pleased with his decision and happily accept the portion of the empire allotted to them. However, Hidetora's third son Saburo (the film's Cordelia, so to speak) criticises his father's decision and calls him foolish (much to the delight of the two eldest sons). Saburo argues that three sons won't be willing to protect their father due to their individual ambitions. Despite Saburo's words being correct, Hidetora is furious and banishes Saburo from his empire. It soon becomes apparent that Hidetora is no longer welcome in the empire he fought so furiously to obtain. His two eldest sons begin to overthrow him and refuse to offer their father any protection. Hidetora slowly grows insane, eventually wandering the wilderness with only his loyalest companions by his side.

Ran is regarded as Akira Kurosawa's most personal film, even occasionally regarded as his absolute best. The film languished in development hell for years. The first version of the script was penned by 1978, yet didn't go before the cameras until over half a decade later. Kurosawa's latest movies hadn't made much of a profit, making studios less inclined to fund this expensive production. While waiting for his epic to receive funding, Kurosawa painted detailed storyboards and designed ornate costumes. By the time French producer Serge Silberman raised the required money, Kurosawa had virtually already pre-shot and pre-edited the entire movie. His vision was clear, and he worked passionately to achieve it.

By all accounts the production was fairly smooth, but Kurosawa suffered three consecutive tragedies in the first 6 weeks of 1985. His long-time swordplay choreographer Ryu Kuze and sound man Fumio Yanoguchi (who had worked with him since the 1940s) died within a few days of each other. Both had started on the production of Ran but were compelled to leave due to ill-health. Following this, Kurosawa's wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness, eventually dying in early February. Kurosawa responded by immersing himself further in the production of the film, and his passion is obvious.

At 2 hours and 40 minutes, Ran is gruellingly long and occasionally difficult to sit through. Yet the film is a triumph in global cinema, with competent direction, a vibrant Japanese score, strong emotionally-charged performances and incredible battles. It's an action epic containing no more than 2 spectacular battles. The rest of the running time is dedicated to dialogue and establishing deep characterisations. The battles haven't dated one iota. Instead of employing CGI to create a swarm of soldiers, hundreds of actual extras have been employed. The colour scheme is particularly amazing. Even better are the jaw-dropping costumes which received an Oscar. These costumes were created by hand, taking a total of two years to complete them. The costumes look thoroughly authentic, and present an amazingly convincing vision of the 16th century.

I won't lie...Ran may be found quite boring by some. For someone who adores the works of Michael Bay and who is searching for never-ending action will be vastly disappointed. But if you decide to watch Kurosawa's masterpiece seeking oodles of action, then you're watching it for all the wrong reasons.
In spite of my incessant appraisal of the outstanding visuals being displayed, there are several shortcomings. For starters, the film is undeniably difficult to follow. Stilted dialogue and poor distinguishing of plot points proves lethal. The acting is top notch, but much of the character behaviour appears random and incoherent. This is a problem I've found with all of Kurosawa's movies: there's a wonderful narrative that's blemished by a clunky and jumbled screenplay. For most of the running time, the visuals appear to be the product of Kurosawa's self-indulgence as the film moves from one random (albeit beautiful) visual image to the next. At least it's gripping and thoroughly involving, with a sufficient amount of interesting characters to keep one entertained.

Quite unsurprisingly, the film is extremely violent and filled with bloodshed. The evil bitch known as Kaede receives her comeuppance is a very violent fashion. It's interesting to note than while the film was stamped with a suitable R rating by the MPAA, in Australia the film has been slapped with a PG rating. Weird...

Ran is an expressive and deep reflection of the condition of human affairs. It's a transfixing tale of the perpetual balance between action and repercussion which transpires in the midst of those who kill and those who are killed. It is a narrative concerning two brothers and their machiavellian approach to their acquisition of supremacy. It's also about a rogue brother guided by truth and rejected for speaking that of which would eventually and paradoxically occur. The film is also about one woman and her desire for vengeance against all those who devastated her childhood. The film additionally concerns a lone father too blind to realise the truth, and who pays for the sins of his past with the blood of his sons (both the loyal and the treacherous). Finally, the film is a story about all those ensnared in the twisted web of "Ran"...which aptly translates as "chaos".
Despite the film being hard to follow at times, Ran is an absolute triumph in the career of Akira Kurosawa. It's an unforgettable and gripping tale of disloyalty and trust. The visuals are mind-blowing, the direction is beautiful, and the acting is simply superb. This is an astounding epic film, with exhilarating action and yet much subtlety that becomes apparent on repeated viewings.

8.1/10

''Men prefer sorrow over joy... suffering over peace!''

An elderly lord abdicates to his three sons, and the two corrupt ones turn against him.

Tatsuya Nakadai: Lord Hidetora Ichimonji

Born in 1910 Japan, Akira Kurosawa first studied painting before moving into film in the late 1930s. A well-known director in Japan throughout the 1940s, his 1950 production of Rashomon launched him to international acclaim; and throughout the remainder of his long career he was widely acknowledged as among the world's greatest film directors. The creator of such films as The Seven Samurai, Ikiru, and Yojimbo. Released in 1985, RAN would be among his final films and is generally felt to be among his finest.



In Kurosawa's RAN, the Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) divides his kingdom between three sons: Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu) and Saburo (Daisuke Ryu). When youngest son Saburo upbraids his father for foolishness, Hidetora banishes Saburo, only to find Taro and Jiro turning against him just as Saburo predicted. Kurosawa shapes the story to 16th Century Japan.
As in many Kurosawa films, Ran alternates moments of great stillness with rapacious action, enclosed spaces with wide vistas. In stillness, the film focuses upon its actors and their intrigues; perhaps most notably the perfidious Lady Kaede, a truly dark character frighteningly realized.
I was personally interested with the character of Lady Kaede played to perfection by Mieko Harada. All through history women can be so much more manipulative than any man can dream of being. Some of the world's most notorious and great figures in History have sometimes been driven to make choices not of their own making due to a manipulative wife. Little suggestions or murmurs from their partner; influencing ideas within their minds that otherwise wouldn't have been thought of immediately. You can trace this recurring theme right back through the ages tracing back to present day.
Indeed, all the cast is remarkably fine. Although the greatest achievement, and the timeless performance, of the film is Tatsuya Nakadai's Lord Hidetora, whose mixture of good intention and folly leads first to humiliation and then to madness.
Hidetora Ichimonji, played by Tatsuya Nakadai, is instantly unrecognisable from his real-time manifestation. He gives a performance which results in being layered, precise and transcending realms of quality. The transition of his character during the film's running time is mind blowingly incredible.
We see a man lose everything, we see his own past and his rise to power; The many people effected by his bloodthirsty actions, by his untamed goal for ultimate domination and power. Women who have lost their families and homes, that have been claimed as the victors wives, a noble boy that has his sight taken and home destroyed along with the suffering of his sister.
The victims only peace is to pray to Buddha...but as RAN tells us, Buddha left this place a long time ago, to the world of men who ravage the lands with war and blood.

Kurosawa first came up with the idea that would become RAN in the mid-1970s, when he happened to read a parable about the Sengoku-era warlord Mōri Motonari. Motonari was famous for having three sons, all incredibly loyal and talented in their own right. Kurosawa began imagining what would have happened had they been bad.
Despite the similarities to Shakespeare's play King Lear, Kurosawa only became aware of the similarities after he had started pre-planning. According to him, the stories of Mōri Motonari and Lear merged in a way he was never fully able to explain. He wrote the script shortly after filming Dersu Uzala in 1975, and then "let it sleep" for seven years. During this time, he painted storyboards of every shot in the film, later published with the screenplay and available as an extra on the Criterion Collection DVD release of the film, and continued searching for funding. Following his success with 1980's Kagemusha, which he sometimes called a dress rehearsal for RAN, Kurosawa was finally able to secure backing from French producer Serge Silberman.

According to American film Critic Michael Wilmington, Kurosawa told him that much of the film was a metaphor for nuclear warfare and the anxiety of the post-Hiroshima age.
He believed that, despite all of the technological progress of the 20th century, all people had learned was how to kill each other more efficiently.
In RAN, the vehicle for apocalyptic destruction is the arquebus, an early firearm that was introduced to Japan in the 1500s. Arquebuses revolutionized samurai warfare, and the age of swords and single combat warriors fell rapidly by the wayside. Now, samurai warfare would be characterized by massive faceless armies engaging each other at a distance. Kurosawa had already dealt with this theme in his previous film Kagemusha, with the destruction of the Takeda cavalry by the arquebuses of the Oda and Tokugawa clans.
Akira thus concluded, ''All the technological progress of these last years has only taught human beings how to kill more of each other faster. It's very difficult for me to retain a sanguine outlook on life under such circumstances.''
In RAN, the Battle of Hachiman Field is a perfect illustration of this new kind of warfare. Saburo's arquebusiers annihilate Jiro's cavalry and drive off his infantry by engaging them from the woods, where the cavalry are unable to venture. Similarly, Saburo's assassination by a sniper also shows how individual heroes can be easily disposed of on a modern battlefield. Kurosawa also illustrates this new warfare with his camera. Instead of focusing on the warring armies, he frequently sets the focal plane beyond the action, so that in the film they appear as abstract entities.

The Japanese word for RAN results in being chaos or revolt; The story is a beautiful example of how harsh the World and humanity can be.
As the title suggests, chaos occurs repeatedly in the film; in many scenes Kurosawa foreshadows it by filming approaching cumulonimbus clouds, which finally break into a raging storm during the castle massacre. Hidetora is an autocrat whose powerful presence keeps the countryside unified and at peace. His abdication frees up other characters, such as Jiro and Lady Kaede, to pursue their own agendas, which they do with absolute ruthlessness. While the title is almost certainly an allusion to Hidetora's decision to abdicate (and the resulting mayhem that follows), there are other examples of the disorder of life, what film critic Michael Sragow calls a "trickle-down theory of anarchy." Kurogane's assassination of Taro ultimately elevates Lady Kaede to power and turns Jiro into an unwilling puppet for her schemes. Saburo's decision to rescue Hidetora ultimately draws in two rival warlords and leads to an unwanted battle between Jiro and Saburo, culminating in the destruction of the Ichimonji clan.
The ultimate example of chaos is the absence of gods. When Hidetora sees Lady Sué, a devout Buddhist and the most religious character in the film, he tells her, "Buddha is gone from this miserable world." Sué, despite her belief in love and forgiveness, eventually has her head cut off thanks to Lady Kaede. When Kyoami claims that the gods either do not exist or are the cause of human suffering, Tango responds, "The gods can't save us from ourselves." Kurosawa has repeated the point, saying "humanity must face life without relying on God or Buddha." The last shot of the film shows Tsurumaru standing on top of the ruins of his family castle. Unable to see, he stumbles towards the edge until he almost falls over. He drops the scroll of the Buddha his sister had given him and just stands there, "a blind man at the edge of a precipice, bereft of his god, in a darkening world." This may symbolize the modern concept of the death of God, as Kurosawa also claimed "Man is perfectly alone...Tsurumaru represents modern humanity."

Kurosawa himself once said that "Hidetora is me," and there is some evidence in the film that Hidetora serves as a stand-in for Kurosawa. Hidetora's crest is the sun and moon, and the Japanese character of Kurosawa's first name "Akira" (kanji: 明) is combined from the kanji meaning "sun" (日) and "moon" (月).
Esteemed film critic Roger Ebert agrees, stating that Ran "may be as much about Kurosawa's life as Shakespeare's play."
RAN was the final film of Kurosawa's third period(1965–1985), a time where he had difficulty securing support for his pictures, and was frequently forced to seek foreign financial backing.
An extract from the Screenplay speaks volumes of the frustration Akira Kurosawa must have felt in this period, his wife tragically died during production, he channelled his grief into this film, and it shows: "A terrible scroll of Hell is shown depicting the fall of the castle. There are no real sounds as the scroll unfolds like a daytime nightmare. It is a scene of human evildoing, the way of the demonic Ashura, as seen by a Buddha in tears. The music superimposed on these pictures is, like the Buddha's heart, measured in beats of profound anguish, the chanting of a melody full of sorrow that begins like sobbing and rises gradually as it is repeated, like karmic cycles, then finally sounds like the wailing of countless Buddhas."

In addition to its chaotic elements, RAN also contains a strong element of nihilism, which is present from the opening sequence where Hidetora mercilessly hunts down a boar only to refrain from eating it to the last scene with Tsurumaru. Roger Ebert describes Ran as "a 20th century film set in medieval times, in which an old man can arrive at the end of his life having won all his battles, and foolishly think he still has the power to settle things for a new generation. But life hurries ahead without any respect for historical continuity; his children have their own lusts and furies. His will is irrelevant, and they will divide his spoils like dogs tearing at a carcass."
This marked a radical departure from Kurosawa's earlier films, many of which were filled with hope and redemption. Only Throne of Blood, an adaptation of Macbeth, had as bleak an outlook. Even Kagemusha, though it chronicled the fall of the Takeda clan and their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Nagashino, had ended on a note of regret rather than despair. By contrast, the world of RAN is a Hobbesian world, where life is an endless cycle of suffering and everybody is a villain or a victim, and in many cases both. Heroes like Saburo may do the right thing, but in the end they are doomed as well. Unlike other Kurosawa heroes, like Kikuchiyo from Seven Samurai or Watanabe from Ikiru, who die performing great acts, Saburo dies pointlessly. Gentle characters like Lady Sué are doomed to fall victim to the evil and violence around them, and conniving characters like Jiro or Lady Kaede are never given a chance to atone and are predestined to a life of wickedness and ultimately violent death as well.
Kurogane gives us a warning concerning the powerful persuasion and danger regarding women, in particular, aimed at Lady Kaede:

''There are many foxes hereabouts.
It is said they take human form.
Take care, my lord.
They often impersonate women.

In Central Asia a fox
seduced King Pan Tsu...
and made him kill men.

In China he married King Yu
and ravaged the land.

In Japan, as Princess Tamamo...
he caused great
havoc at court.

He became a white fox
with nine tails.
Then they lost trace of him.
Some people say...
he settled down here.
So beware, my lord, beware.''

Akira sums up the story's theme by underlining his goals from initial stages, ''What I was trying to get at in Ran, and this was there from the script stage, was that the gods or God or whoever it is observing human events is feeling sadness about how human beings destroy each other, and powerlessness to affect human beings' behaviour.''

Few directors are able to convey the sense of chaos, destruction, and fear with which Kurosawa endows battle or drama scenes; RAN is the best example to ever grace film.
There are several worthy circumstances, and the battle of the third castle (in which Hidetora is attacked by sons Taro and Jiro) is easily among the finest battle sequences of Kurosawa's career. Presented without any sound except a simple, eloquent music score, flash-cutting between different groups in the struggle, the result is a unique mixture of beauty and horror; In my opinion unequalled by any other film I've seen.
The cinematography for 1985 is unrivalled, having that timeless and radiant glow of legendary significance. Costumes and battle gear really are flawless; The cavalry riding alongside the infantry are truly inspiring to watch. The vibrant, colourful visuals, accompanied with a superlative Japanese primal score of music, strong emotionally charged performances and you have a dominant winner. The cast doesn't just say their lines, they bark them with a daunting, charged emotion that screams believability and finesse.
It should be noted that RAN, unlike Rashomon, Throne Of Blood, Ikiru and many other Kurosawa films, RAN is in beautiful splashes of colour. I have long been accustomed to the remarkable shading of Kurosawa's black and white projects, and I missed it; But only for a moment.
Kurosawa proves no less adept in colour than in black and white format, and RAN's use of colour is beautiful. For this reason I particularly recommend the Criterion Collection edition of the film over any other; it is impeccably fine. But regardless of the particular version, this is a film which must be seen by anyone who appreciates Asian or World Cinema; Truly a masterwork by a great master, Akira Kurosawa.

''Are there no gods... no Buddha? If you exist, hear me. You are mischievous and cruel! Are you so bored up there you must crush us like ants? Is it such fun to see men weep?''

When I asked for an option of a good Japanese movie, I was introduced to Kurosawa's movies. Worried about being bored with a b&w, I chose Ran which was shot in 1985 in color. I am glad with my choice to being introduced to his work through 'Ran'. The version I saw was on DVD and the movie had gone through better color treatment and there was additional suppliments to the DVD which includes

The movie is about a fearful man, Hidetora who self-declared himself as a lord through ruthless killings and wars. It is the same man who is also a father of 3 son. After a series of events, the father began to realise which of the sons is loyal.

The astonishing scene of the movie would be the burning of the castle and also the numbers (in hundreds) of extras and horses used in making this movie. The capibility of the director and his crew to organise the whole props and people on the set and successfully making this movie a beautiful piece in the midst of chaos is simply breathtaking.

I suggest watching this movie with appreciation for its cinematic creativity and the acting of the character Hidetora by Tatsuya Nakadai who has acted regularly in most of Kurosawa's film replacing Toshiro Mifune.

This movie does have some influnces of Shakespeare's 'King Lear' because Kurosawa himself is an avid fan of Shakespeare which we could see in most of his films. Anyways, I would recommend this movie to start of Kurosawa's movie marathon.

I was more than pleased with the Masterworks Edition, although I've heard (but not seen) that the Criterion DVD is the best. See exerpt of review below, reverberates the sentiments I've read:
"However, this gem's transition [Ran] to DVD has been cringe-worthy on Region 1. The Fox Lorber edition is noted as being one of the worst transfers in existence, and while many were satisfied with the Masterworks edition, most who were familiar with the film (and many who weren't) recognized that there was an obscene amount of digital manipulation. The result is the film's colors looked utterly artificial and the film has nowhere near the serene look it normally does."