A modern-day Akira Kurosawa masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (9 July 2012)

Late Japanese master of cinema Akira Kurosawa has many masterpieces to his name - "Seven Samurai" (1954) (my personal favorite), "Rashomon" (1950), "Yojimbo" (1961), "Throne of Blood" (1957), "Kagemusha" (1980) and the film I'm commenting on here, 1985's "Ran." Having seen this movie in its entirety for the first time earlier today, I'm simply amazed by the epic scale of the picture, the performances, the use of color and imagery (by Emi Wada), and Kurosawa's master direction.
"Ran" is a unique collaboration between Japan and France. "Ran" (which means "revolt," "chaos," or "fury" in Japanese) is Kurosawa's epic adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear," and surrounds the aging 16-century Japanese warlord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) after he unwisely decides to give up control of his kingdom to his three sons - Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), and Saburo (Daisuke Ryu) - with the land divided up equally amongst them. Hidetora falls prey to the false flattery bestowed upon his by two oldest sons - Taro and Jiro - but angrily banishes his youngest child Saburo when he speaks the truth about the insanity of his father's actions. Madness, bloodshed, betrayal, and all-out war soon follow.
Kurosawa is by far the greatest foreign director I've ever encountered in my 26-and-a-half years on this planet. I've already mentioned a number of pictures that I've seen and consider to be classics, not just of Japanese cinema, but of all films (I consider "Seven Samurai" to be the greatest foreign-language picture I've ever seen). What makes "Ran" so powerful is its strong performances, inventive use of color and costumes (which won an Oscar at the Academy Awards for 1985 for costume designer Emi Wada) and having looked at the picture, there's a certain air of timelessness to it: it feels like it could have been made decades ago back in the 1960s, yet it's only 27-years-old! (This last statement could be because of the restored audio and picture on the Blu-ray edition of this film, from which this comment is based.)
The film also plays on two common themes in Kurosawa's work, the battle between reality vs. fantasy (the flattery of Taro and Jiro to their father for his decision, and the madness Hidetora soon falls into), and the lust for power (and the bloodshed that ensues as the three newly crowned warlords battle each other for ultimate control of the land). Perhaps is this no better seen here than in "Ran."
This is another Akira Kurosawa masterpiece to behold!
10/10