Ran is Akira Kurosawa's last epic.

Rating: 9/10 (2 March 2018)

The man was a genius when it came to directing these long Japanese war epics and Ran is no different. This is Kurosawa's interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear, a play that unfortunately I did not study. The plot consists of Lord Hidetora abdicating his empire and splitting the kingdom between his three sons, who each want to have total control. And so many castles are raided and many horseback battles are conceived. Whatever the scene, everything was filmed to perfection. I just adore Kurosawa's style, he doesn't rush a single scene. Leave a castle burning for 30 seconds, watch a man run through a field for 30 seconds or even look at the sky for 30 seconds. In theory, I should be bored...but his artistic integrity and majestic style is a sight to behold. What resonated with me the most was the screenplay, also by Kurosawa. Several lines of dialogue felt like Shakespeare and it's admirable to see an influential film maker be...well...influenced by another famous writer. Scenes where Hidetora descends into madness are great examples of this. Tatsuya Nakadai, who portrayed Hidetora, was once again outstanding. This equals his role from Kagemusha, it was an emotive and poignant portrayal of a father who has been betrayed by his children. The battle scenes were masterful work, hundreds of extras in clan attire definitely filled up the screen with contrasting colours. The costume and production design were yet again wonderful to look at. I do love me the traditional Japanese environment that Kurosawa captures with ease. Lady Kaeda though, was the manifestation of evil...her manipulative skills were fascinating to watch. This leads me to my only problem, which is that none of the major characters are likeable, even Hidetora had issues. So I struggled to become emotionally invested in these characters. However, the purpose of this iteration was to explore themes of betrayal and insanity, Kurosawa conveyed them to technical perfection. Not a complete masterpiece, but extremely close to being one.