Very disappointing considering the enormous potential

Rating: 5/10 (14 August 2005)

There are many longer reviews written about Kurosawa's "Ran", so I will keep it short and only outline why I think the film is hugely overrated and very disappointing.
The film has great potential. Visually it is very impressive (in spite of a few disruptive cuts in the cavalry scenes), and the music and sound support the images extremely well. Very deservedly it was awarded the Oscar for best Costumes. But in the domain of storytelling I found "Ran" lacking. It positively reminds of Classical and Shakespearian tragedies and aspires to tell a great tale of the demise of an empire and family dynasty built on bloodshed, but the characters and their motivations are sadly unconvincing. Kurosawa spends much of the three hours on lavish images, yet he does not really develop what lies beyond the surface. The Great Lord and his three sons remain character sketches, and so the old Lord's emotional ups and downs and his sons' violent struggle over his succession seem jumpy and unconvincing without a deeper development of their motivations and family story. The only exception to this is the scheming wife of the Great Lord's oldest son.
Granted, I don't understand Japanese and so have to rely on the subtitles. Furthermore, a Japanese viewer may probably read far more in the faces, gestures and intonation than someone only quaintly accustomed with Japanese culture. Nevertheless, this is no excuse. The movie simply does not achieve what it aims for. Apart from the visual pleasures the result is fairly shallow, too slow and overlong (although I generally prefer longer films). To me "Ran" is completely over-hyped.
If you want tragedy, there are plenty of decent Shakespeare adaptations on film. If you want great storytelling and characters watch movies like those of the Cohen brothers (e.g. "Millers Crossing" or "Barton Fink"). And if you are after the great images and the Asian flair watch one of the three recent Chinese Martial Arts epics. (Out of which "Hero" is probably the most interesting with the moral and political questions it provokes.) It pains me to say this, but in my view Kurosawa's "Ran" is simply not worth watching - at least not for entertainment.