Kurosawa's Last Epic

Rating: 10/10 (24 October 2012)

Ran is Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear.This epic film written and directed by Kurosawa happens to be his last epic.It features Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-era warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons. It also stars Mieko Harada as the wife of Ichimonji's eldest son. The story is based on legends of the daimyo Mōri Motonari, as well as on the Shakespearean tragedy.
The Lear counterpart is an elderly 16th-century warlord, who announces that he's about to divide his kingdom equally among his three sons.In his dotage, he falls prey to the false flattery of his treacherous sons, while banishing his youngest son, the only member of the family who loves him enough to tell him the unvarnished truth. Thanks to his foolish pride, his domain collapses under its own weight as the sons battle each other over total control.
Akira Kurosawa's last film is slightly marred by some too obvious straining toward masterpiece status, yet it's a stunning achievement in epic cinema.But nevertheless,it enhances the spectacle the same way the spectacle bolsters the drama. Few other directors had Kurosawa's ability to convey the intimate as well as the epic, to handle stillness as well as violence.It's a film for the ages and one of the few genuine screen masterpieces ever released on cinema.