Superb take on Shakespeare's "King Lear"

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2019)

A Japanse lord has risen to power through many years of warfare and intrigue. Now an old man, he decides to divide his domains among his three sons. In the process, he quarrels with the youngest son, who is the only one sane and bold enough to tell his progenitor the truth, to wit that this is a singularly misguided plan. Slowly but surely the family will rip itself apart, amidst treachery and slaughter...
Kurosawa transports Shakespeare's tragedy to feudal Japan. In doing so he re-arranges and re-adapts the story liberally : the protagonist, for instance, becomes an old samurai warlord with a whole household of openly acknowledged concubines. There is also a bitter joke which involves a fox head and which allows for a bit of folklore about beautiful shape-changing women who set out to beguile unsuspecting men. The move to feudal Japan works very well, for a variety of reasons. To begin with, this backdrop preserves the great themes of class, power, prestige. Secondly, the viewer is immersed in a rich and complex culture which can produce extremes both of violence and of beauty, often at the same time. (Some of the movie's costumes, especially the aristocratic ones, are so exquisite that they deserve a fashion museum of their own.)
This is an epic movie with an exceptional visual grandeur. It is also a deeply pessimistic movie. "Ran" deals not just with the folly of a single man or a single family : it deals with the folly of Mankind, which could live peacefully on a generous and abundant Earth but prefers killing and looting...
Much recommended. Watch it on a large screen.