Lady Kaede rules

Rating: 10/10 (28 December 2014)

I rarely give a film a 10. Not my favorite Hitchock. Not my favorite Gilliam. Not my favorite LOTR. They all have to live with a 9. RAN is a 10. I come back to this film every few years, and each time it impresses me more. LOTR may have bested it for grand battles, but such are only a means, not an end, in RAN.
Superficially, RAN is a King Lear story about a Japanese warlord who abdicates his throne and is betrayed by his elder sons after sending his true youngest son into exile. His dream to visit each son in turn and stay over a few days at the "in-law addition" to the family castles is thwarted when his sons want to usurp every last bit of his power and the whole clan goes down in war.
In reality, RAN is about female power. And manipulation. Power manipulation. Sexual manipulation. Manipulation for revenge. The Supreme Manipulator is Lady Kaede. The battles are just her chess games. The sons are just numbers - literally, their names mean "First," "Second," and "Third"-born.
The fate of Hidetora Ichimonji, our King Lear, is not sealed when he trusts his elder sons and sends his true youngest son into exile at the beginning of the film. It was sealed long before the film started, when he massacred Lady Kaede's family in front of her eyes, and then forced the unspeakable on her: marrying her to his eldest son as a spoil of war. Little did he understand how much more cunning than he she is. How much more patient. How much more manipulative. Seemingly peaceful years pass with Hidetora watching his kingdom prosper, but the tree has already been severed at the roots.
When Lady Kaede is finally beheaded at the end of the film, it is too late. Lady Kaede's most dangerous body part is gone: the brain that plots, the mouth that whispers destruction into her husbands ears. Her plans have already come to full fruition, and the destruction of her family is avenged by the complete destruction of Hidetora's. Who is to say that she is more evil than Hidetora or his sons? Has she done more unto them than Hidetora did to her? Did she ever wield anything but her tongue, while powerless men kill and rampage with their swords?
RAN is surely Kurosawa's greatest opus, and his last. The Twelve Samurai and the Hidden Fortress are fine films, but ultimately just sophisticated action films. RAN is a film of color, of symbolism that is powerful but never in-your-face, of emancipation, and of revenge served oh so very cold.