Masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10 (22 February 2011)

What can anyone say that hasn't been said already about this film? It's a commercial release of one of the most artistic plays ever, and rendered by the most artistically minded film maker in the history of cinema. Who could create such a thing?
I speak of none other than the magnificent Akira Kurosawa, the grand master of all film making, and the epitome of his work in the samurai genre, "RAN".
"RAN" explores the turmoil caused by the child who knows only himself, and dismisses all that he should hold dear and valuable. But our main protagonist Hidetora raised his children on the values of unbridled warfare; how to betray a friend, turn him into an enemy, and conquer him ruthlessly. Yet he is utterly shocked when his own offspring treat him thus, and sent into a psychosis from which only a loved one can retrieve him.
Edward De'Vere's play focused on three daughters who use their wiles to manipulate and scheme against one another, and thus inflict and strike the same madness in their father. But Kurosawa takes the story and give it a new bent by turning the daughters into sons for the would be Shogun of Japan. This adds a new twist, and gives more than just the usual visual hyperbole that many remakes of films do to their predecessors by actually adding to the story material. The manipulation is still there, but it is the men who are driven by a lust for power and wealth, the one thing they inherited from their father.
Note the color schemes of the sons. Note the eldest in Gold, his ascendancy to the family throne. The second son shows Red, and his thirst to replace his eldest brother. The third son, the youngest, donned in blue, and it is the color that comes forth at the end when Hidetora regains himself, and as we also look up at the sky with the characters, and ask the gods why they are so cruel. Indeed, what hath god wrought upon this segment of feudal Japan? A land where its borders are set apart from anything tangible we know about that period in Japan's history. It is truly an imaginary tale, but one fraught with the historic realities of those striving for dominance in a system that knew only swords and plowshares.
But it is not the men who are the only samurai. There is indeed a woman who takes on the spiritual semblance of the vampire, and drives the story forward to render justice for her family, now lost to Hidetora's exploits. She is perhaps a samurai above all the others.
It is a slow film. It is a grande film. It is spectacle mixed with the frailties and cruelties and, at the end, devotions of the human heart. We see the splash and splendor of the colors, the utter destruction of a society that has put faith in military-wit and lost its heart and soul. We see one disaster follow another, and we also see those who come in to assist the true, and those that come into to clean the chaos that has reigned. Note the old lord in Act Three whose forces are in white. They look down with smiles and applaud the efforts below of those they love. Note the color of the army that assails the Red uniformed forces of the angry second son.
Artistry encapsulated.
Now, technically it is supremely shot, there isn't too much to criticize here save for one or two SFX shots. The scope and scale of the production is enormous. And for all of the spectacle presented in this epic, it does not lose its intimacy. We see moments of passion, moments of truth, moments of betrayal and moments of solitude. Shot composition and lens selection does not miss a beat. Whether we're looking at a long shot, or a close-up. There is of course the famous montage battle sequence that many have tried to duplicate, but have never achieved. Married to some incredible music accentuating the segment, we see cinematography at its best.
This is a long film. It is a long epic film made for and by a Japanese film maker, but a film that can touch all on an emotional level. It will try the patience of the average viewer, particularly younger viewers, but if you're a film aficionado, then this film is for you.
Watch and enjoy.
ADDENUDM; Oh wow, apparently three prostitutes didn't like my review. Well, hell, go stream Porky's off of Amazon, and quite wasting both your time and mine by reading my review.