Ran - Criterion Collection (1985)

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. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com essential video

 One of Kurosawa's Greatest Films
This reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear by legendary director Akira Kurosawa is a fine addition to the Criterion Collection. Majestic in scope, Ran is Kurosawa's last epic masterpiece. The film is set in sixteenth-century Japan and evinces the folly of war as well as how treachery, greed, and a lust for power destroy a family. A special edition double-disc set, the second disc offers a number of first-rate supplements, including A.K., a 74-minute film on Kurosawa by Chris Marker, a 30-minute documentary on the making of Ran, and a 35-minute video piece reconstructing Ran through Kurosawa's paintings and sketches. An excellent 28-page booklet featuring an insightful essay by film critic Michael Wilmington and interviews with Kurosawa and composer Toru Takemitsu is also included. This film -- particularly this Criterion Collection edition -- is a must for any Kurosawa collector. April 1, 2008

 FIVE STARS FOR RAN CRITERION COLLECTION THREE AT BEST FOR MASTERWORKS: GET CRITERION
If you are going for Ran (which is essential) go all the way and get the Criterion Collection Ran - Criterion Collection. No half stepping with the Ran (Masterworks Edition). Do not do as I have done and try to get it on the cheap. Ran deserves the very best, and rewards the investment richly. Criterion from their earlier offerings of Wild Strawberries - Criterion Collection to Grand Illusion - Criterion Collection to Kurosawa's other works such as Rashomon - Criterion Collection, all the way to their latest, such as Walker - Criterion Collection, or the fully new Seven Samurai - 3 Disc Remastered Edition (Criterion Collection Spine # 2) are all of the highest quality both in restoration, production and in extras, and thus their prices do not come down. But you save nothing by getting the Masterworks edition instead.

Masterworks, the one I got, does indeed include in its extras section a comparison with an unrestored print. But it looks like the unrestored print was the worst one they could find, and I wonder how true are the colors Masterworks emplys. Too many scenes look like they have had an amber gel laid over everything.

You also find on Masterworks repeatedly and at predictable intervals the usual end-of-reel black square followed by black circle in the upper right hand corner which in the theatre signaled the projectionist to put down that soda, let go of his girl and go warm up the other machine, or on broadcast meant go to commercial, but here on a "fully restored" DVD edition looks like an artifact they should have corrected.

You have a choice of two commentators on the Masterworks edition, both really bad in either extreme, either annoyingly uninformative or annoyingly too informative. Apparently Criterion has excellent new commentators on their new three disk Seven Samurai production, and also excellent commentators on their Ran disk. Too often these commentators, with the consistent exception of the always brilliant and enthusiastic Mr. Alex Cox, when they are awake at all, drone on like an irritating guy in the theater seat in front of you who soon somehow receives your giant bucket of popcorn upon his noisy head.

Such is the second commentator here, who fortunately only wakes up in order to ruin something really interesting in the movie, but kills that entirely. He too soon reveals the secret of the flamboyant Peter, rather than as the director intends letting that secret unfold with all sorts of ambiguities, and leaving himself little more to say on the subject. He rouses himself from a long and merciful silence to walk all over the climactic decapitation scene, discussing once more fabric and destroying this scene altogether. One wishes he would please just please shut up, which he often mercifully does for long stretches, only to disturb everything with his uncertain tales of how he met her at a cocktail party and she was so polite and so short (about "five foot three", nothing like her character here, who seems "twelve feet tall and so powerful"! Hey, fool, like, she's acting, dude!

Or he brags about hanging out with the Tango character, a real nice guy and good sportsman, he tells, as we watch him ably handling a horse, or about seeing the helmets on a table in the costume warehouse, and that table seemed to him a mile long, and what if Kurosawa had done such and such, and wheher Kurosawa regretted making mistakes in the final product the way he himself regretted the mistakes in his documentaries. Dude, Kurosawa was a perfectionist, with this film five years in storyboards. Dude, Kurosawa didn't make mistakes. He's Kurosawa, even if you think he stole lines from Shakespeare shamelessly.

The other guy is like an over eager associate professor at film school panicking for tenure, filling us with too much factual information about everything, including film technique ("see that? that's a close-up"). Please.

Save your pennies. Get the Criterion copy. I wish I had!

BEST LINE EVER (not "stolen" from Shakespeare) comes from Peter's character: Man is born crying. When he has cried enough, he dies.

Kurosawa here lays before our very eyes we are not allowed to see from Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Cleveland, or the Gaza: the absolute horrors of war and the banality of evil, the self-destructiveness of violence, the permanence of the evil which we do, and how cruelly it comes back to haunt us.

Kurosawa lays here before our eyes that, with the Sue character and the final image of the movie especially, our one hope lies in prayer, in meditation, in nonviolence, in overcoming the hatred within our own selves, in this culture a close adherence to Buddhism, in ours the living of the words of Jesus Christ: Love thy enemies, do good to those who hate us, forgive not seven times but seven times seven times per day, turn the other cheek, give twice what is asked for, etc.

In the words of prophet and Christian preacher and adherent to ahimsa, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., now forty years a martyr for peace and nonviolence: We must learn to live together as brothers or die apart as fools.

In this film the brothers, but one, the compassionate one, die apart as fools. The compassionate one dies a martyr out of love for his father who had banished him. See this movie, in the best edition you can find, in the Criterion Colleciton. We need see it now, in this era of senseless and endless warfare which threatens to destroy us all.

March 3, 2008

 beautiful to watch and admire
The storyline, heavily Shakespearean, is about a wealthy Warlord who has 3 sons, one of which is bestowed the kingdom. Unprepared for battle he is conquered by deceit. Although medium scale war moves quite patiently, the director keeps your attention to the main characters with effective display of strong acting performances, mesmerizing costumes and large sceneries in Shogun perspective. Literary allusions run wide throughout the film too. I don't want to spoil them for you; but you will be surprised how obvious they really are. February 23, 2008

 Must-have for Kurosawa fans.
This is an amazing movie. If you're a Kurosawa fan, don't hesitate to buy this. If you're not yet a fan, you may want to start with "Seven Samurai"--less blood. January 23, 2008

 "In a world gone mad it's madness to be sane."
Greed, deception, betrayal, and war are the main theme's here in Ran. A beautifully shot Japanes war epic with a weaving story of politics and violent battle's. A father of three son's step's down as Great Lord to leave his oldest son with the title of Great Lord, another brother is shunned for his discontent with his father's decision, while the other brother secretly plan's his takeover of the throne. It's very sad how greed and deciept take over this family as the bloody war's breakout, with scene's that make most Hollywood movie's pale in comparison. This is a beatifully directed film with great performances, gory battle's, gorgeous landscapes, and a great story. Highly Recommended. January 10, 2008

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