The mad king

Rating: 9/10 (10 April 2005)

Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai) is an old clan leader of Ichimonji clan. He decides to give up his control to his oldest son Taro (Akira Terao), which is like a knife in the back of his middle son Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu). Only his youngest son Sabaru (Daisuke Ryu)tries to beg his father to reconsider: he knows what will happen. But no, Hidetora driven by his guilt of his murderous deeds during his rise to power wants to throw the towel in and to give peace a change, which he believes his oldest son will grand, and so maddened from the harsh words of Sabaru, he casts away his youngest son. But soon, it is discovered, that Taro and Jaro both want total control of the area. So begin the battle between two brothers, driving old Hidetora insane. In the middle Taros wife Kaede (Mieko Harada) prays the lives of Ichimonji clans brothers like a black widow.
People say, that Ran is Kurosawas adaptation of Shakespeares play King Lear. I wouldn't know that, being that I've never read it. So I'll just take their word on it.
Whole plot is full of schemes and conspiracies: everyone is on everyones death list. Very deep drama mixed with bloody battle scenes. And I am not talking about Hollywood type action, but far more brutal type of action, in style of "Saving Private Ryan". Acting is overall very good, tough like it is always in my case, I have this small cultural shock between Japanese actors and European/American ones. But it usually quickly wears off. Good actors are good, no matter the language.
Direction of the whole movie is very good and cinematography is just stunning and full of colours. All images are extremely vivid and lush. Beaty mixed with violence. A combination, which is tried by many directors, but usually in vain, but Kurosawa carries it off almost painlessly.
There's also lots of scenes with lots of extras running all about. In fact it took two years to make all the costumes for this flick, so make your calculations about the amount of all the extras in the flick.
All in all very stunning movie, in fact I even dare to say, RAN is one of the finest made by Kurosawa.