Haunting piece of cinema

Rating: 10/10 (29 September 2002)

I was so engrossed from start to finish. It's a great story with some of the darkest facets of human nature.
Lord Hidetora's character probably struck me the most. An old warrior, whose days of glorious battle are behind him, deals with his coming of age. Tatsuya Nakadai's acting is great and you can't help but feel for his plight. The scene in the burning castle is so surreal and I loved Hidetora's face as you can feel his anguish. So many themes are covered from loyalty (very important), honor, greed, the corruption of power, and insanity. I don't want to go into detail too much without giving the plot away, but let's say that my first impressions of the characters proved to be severely wrong as the story progressed. I noticed the tone of the film starts happy and peaceful, then just goes 180 towards chaos and anarchy. It's great.
The cinematography is breathtaking. Kurosawa captures the beauty of japanese landscapes from castle strongholds, fog covered land, to fields billowing in the wind. The battle scenes are spectacular and the savagery of war is very realistic. Colors are stunning from the soldiers' uniforms to rich red pools of blood in battle. Ran is a great example of moviemaking at its best.