A Masterpiece of War and Greed

Rating: 10/10 (16 September 2009)

This is film that everyone needs to see. It brings home the horrors of war, betrayal, and greed. When the kingdom is divided among the sons in this version of King Lear, we just know that the person who bares himself honestly is going to become an outsider. The acting is sensational, with masterful personal encounters. Kurosawa even managed to keep the fool as an integral part of the story. Others have eloquently dissected this movie. What I have to offer is that there is such a poetry to the visual aspects of this film. While the battle scenes are among the goriest and grizzliest that have ever been put on celluloid, there is a dance here, a wave of the most intense coming and going as we watch the soldiers fall. It tells how potentially good men can be influenced by the forces of evil. The wife of the first son is purely vengeful, and horrifying. She is nearly a carbon copy of the woman who played the wife of Mifune's Macbeth character in "Throne of Blood." I have been reviewing the Kurosawa canon and am convinced that this may be his finest work.