Laboriously Made, Laborious to Watch

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 2012)

Ran is a second-rate retelling of the Lear story, so the flaws in the plot are easiest to explain with reference to King Lear. These are some of the important differences: the subplot is dropped; Goneril and Regan are turned into effete men; an injured and vengeful daughter-in-law is introduced; the Lear-figure (Hidetora) is a warlord rather than a king; the mad Lear scene is weakened to insignificance; the sons try to kill old Hidetora by having a few thousand men fire at him as he sits in a castle; and the additional character of Tsurumaru, a boy who was blinded by Hidetora at some point in his murderous career, is introduced.
Hidetora is a smaller man than Lear; he has the stubbornness without the nobility. His abdication is also a lot sillier. Lear errs by trusting that people will treat him decently: Hidetora errs by supposing that they will forget that they hate him. This is also much more implausible. After all, there is nothing monstrous or unnatural about the daughter-in-law's attitude towards Hidetora; she just wants her back, and with reason. This diminishes her, and in spite of Kurosawa's attempt to make her a sex maniac, she is not as large or as interesting as Goneril/Regan.
Unlike Lear, Ran does not give us a sense of the insignificance of Man in nature. The "majestic" (read pompous) scenery shots don't make us feel that Man in general is helpless—these are no giants to be dwarfed by Nature, just a murderer and an injured woman and several wimps.
The strong stoical undertone of Lear is lost for obvious reasons. Samurai cannot be stoics; they are people who are trained to kill themselves whenever the going gets inglorious. It is amusing but not profound that Hidetora cannot find a dagger to kill himself with when the need arises.
So what's left of Lear? Only this: People in the world are evil. If you hurt them they'll hurt you when they can. You should be good even if you suffer (like the blind boy), because general goodness and suffering are the only way to avoid family feuds and make the world a better place. Which is all very edifying, but also very trite.
It must also be noted that because of the lingering, ponderous, "epic" pacing of this film, it goes on for twice as long as it should. What to expect: 160 minutes of intense tedium as this misshapen hulk of a film drags itself laboriously towards its predictable close.
Watching Ran is like running for your life for 2 hours and 40 minutes, but with none of the excitement.