Ran
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Akira Terao, Daisuke Ryu, Jinpachi Nezu, Mieko Harada, Tatsuya NakadaiDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 162 minutes
Published: 1998-08-01
DVD Release Date: 1998-08-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Fox Lorber
Movie Reviews of Ran
Movie Review: One of the most important movies in the last 20 years
Summary: 5 Stars
Akira Kurosawa's ingenious blend of Shakespearean drama, traditional Japanese art, and an examination of the perilous nature of life in the modern political world radiates masterfully restrained tension from the very first scene. As the opening credits hover over a landscape rendered with colors more reminiscent of traditional Japanese painting than of modern cinematography, horse-mounted warriors in expressive, finely-crafted period costumes look down from a hill. They see many paths surrounding them in the distance. The subdued yet anxious music urges us to wonder, which path will they take? The following sequence, a montage of a pig hunt led by the menacing (and seemingly all-powerful) Lord Hidetora that reaffirms Kurosawa's stature as the world's greatest film editor, gives us a hint in the direction of this movie's shocking and dramatically unsurpassed ending. Ran is one of Kurosawa's eight masterpieces (the others being Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, Red Beard, and Dreams; however, I haven't seen Madadayo or the uncut version of Dodesukaden yet and they may make ten). Anyone wishing to have even the most basic understanding of what cinema is and what it will become in the future MUST see these movies. Kurosawa made three basic types of movies: experimental narrative (Rashomon, Dodesukaden, Dreams); personal dramas (Ikiru, Red Beard, Madadayo); and action epics (Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo). Ran is the culmination of the development of the latter. It integrates a grand scope into a tightly controlled and simplified structure, displays extraordinary technical ability in everything from a small, perfectly formed circle of scheming people to an endless stampede of attacking horses and their felled riders, and creates characters and especially places that exhibit a Dostoevskian polyphony (for those unfamiliar with the work of the master of voices and choices, this means that they seem to exist as objects independent of their creator). While Ran has a plot based on Shakespeare's King Lear and is costumed and acted in a style similar to Japanese Noh theater, one need not be familiar with either in order to understand it. The simultaneous descent of the land and Hidetora's mind into a state of ran (chaos) is made clear and crisp by the careful psychological composition of the frames and the sharp poignancy of the sounds and dialogue. By the last shot, we forget that its just a movie, forget that we're not in 16th century Japan, and we are surrounded by doubts about the integrity of our world. However, Kurosawa's movies, and Ran especially, work on a three viewing principle. All of the above can be absorbed the first time around, but Ran is so lush with images, sounds, and philosophies that even as the movie's beautiful soundtrack plays and the credits begin, it immediately invites us to see it again. The second viewing suggests another layer of meaning. Clouds and the sky, which bring up clear associations of god, feature prominently in many shots and sequences. Before Hidetora has the dream that causes him to make the strategic mistake of dividing his kingdom among his three sons, there is a cut to a brief shot of clouds moving across the sky. In the superb montage accompanied only by music that depicts Taro and Jiro's forces storming the Third Castle where their father, Hidetora, and his entourage are, there is another short cut to light streaming from the heavens just as the soldiers stream through the castle's broken walls. Finally, the shot where one of Jiro's soldiers on horseback announces preparations for the war that will eventually destroy the Ichimonji clan is framed almost entirely against a background of unmoving clouds in the sky. The image of Buddha is shown twice: once before the aforementioned attack on the Third Castle, and again as part of the ultimate desolation of the movie's ending. All of these instances call up images of god at precisely the most hopeless and nihilistic points of the movie. Also, the sound of the high-pitched Japanese flute is heard thrice: once when the still powerful Hidetora kills the pig at the beginning of the movie, once when Hidetora's is driven insane anew by the memories brought up by the blind Tsurumaru's playing of his flute, and once at the end of the movie when Tsurumaru stands alone at the edge of the cliff. This indicates a chain of harm, but if Hidetora caused the pig to suffer and Tsurumaru brought up memories for Hidetora that made him suffer, who, then, is causing Tsurumaru's suffering? Several times the movie brings up the abuse of power. Hidetora orders his men to destroy a peasant village, but after he discovers that the peasants were not insulting him, we don't see him reverse the order. Jiro abuses his brother Taro's weakness and takes over the kingdom from him. Also, Lady Kaede, instead of responsibly helping to govern the land over which she is queen, deliberately strives for its destruction. These actions and their results move up in magnitude until we are left with the final question: who is responsible for the destructive forces that run wild in this whole world? After the second viewing, one is left with the very serious issue of divine guilt. The third viewing of Ran, though not as forceful as the first two, brings further reward. We begin to pay close attention to the compositions, and see how they change from harmony to disharmony as the movie moves along. The backgrounds are carefully positioned so that a variety of deliberate symbols and spaces appear behind the heads of appropriate characters. We start hearing the small background noises of animals and artillery that make all the difference. Kurosawa makes expert use of new sound technologies, as the positioning of sound from appropriate speakers in Dolby Stereo is just right, and every gunshot and clap of a horse-hoof is recorded with individual crispness. Yes, there are some movies better than Ran, but I can count them with my fingers.
Summary of Ran
As critic Roger Ebert observed in his original review of "Ran", this epic tragedy might have been attempted by a younger director, but only the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, who made the film at age 75, could bring the requisite experience and maturity to this stunning interpretation of Shakespeare's "King Lear". It's a film for the ages--one of the few genuine screen masterpieces--and arguably serves as an artistic summation of the great director's career. In this version of the Shakespeare tragedy, the king is a 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai as Lord Hidetora) who decides to retire and divide his kingdom evenly among his three sons. When one son defiantly objects out of loyalty to his father and warns of inevitable sibling rivalry, he is banished and the kingdom is awarded to his compliant siblings. The loyal son's fears are valid: a duplicitous power struggle ensues and the aging warlord witnesses a maelstrom of horrifying death and destruction. Although the film is slow to establish its story, it's clear that Kurosawa, who planned and painstakingly designed the production for 10 years before filming began, was charting a meticulous and tightly formalized dramatic strategy. As familial tensions rise and betrayal sends Lord Hidetora into the throes of escalating madness, "Ran" (the title is the Japanese character for "chaos" or "rebellion") reaches a fever pitch through epic battles and a fortress assault that is simply one of the most amazing sequences on film. Although this awesome epic is best viewed on a big theatrical screen, the DVD presents the widescreen film with a higher quality of image and sound than was ever previously available in any home-video format. "--Jeff Shannon"As critic Roger Ebert observed in his original review of Ran, this epic tragedy might have been attempted by a younger director, but only the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, who made the film at age 75, could bring the requisite experience and maturity to this stunning interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear. It's a film for the ages--one of the few genuine screen masterpieces--and arguably serves as an artistic summation of the great director's career. In this version of the Shakespeare tragedy, the king is a 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai as Lord Hidetora) who decides to retire and divide his kingdom evenly among his three sons. When one son defiantly objects out of loyalty to his father and warns of inevitable sibling rivalry, he is banished and the kingdom is awarded to his compliant siblings. The loyal son's fears are valid: a duplicitous power struggle ensues and the aging warlord witnesses a maelstrom of horrifying death and destruction. Although the film is slow to establish its story, it's clear that Kurosawa, who planned and painstakingly designed the production for 10 years before filming began, was charting a meticulous and tightly formalized dramatic strategy. As familial tensions rise and betrayal sends Lord Hidetora into the throes of escalating madness, Ran (the title is the Japanese character for "chaos" or "rebellion") reaches a fever pitch through epic battles and a fortress assault that is simply one of the most amazing sequences on film. Although this awesome epic is best viewed on a big theatrical screen, the DVD presents the widescreen film with a higher quality of image and sound than was ever previously available in any home-video format. --Jeff Shannon
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