Ran (1985)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Film Review

Buoyed up by the success of Kagemusha (1980), director Akira Kurosawa was finally able to realise a film that he had been hoping to make for over a decade, a lavish epic to rival the spectacle and grandeur of his earlier samurai films.  It was in the mid-1970s that Kurosawa first conceived Ran, inspired by a 16th century Japanese legend about a warlord, Mori Motonari, of the Sengoku period who divided his kingdom between his three sons.  As he developed the storyline, Kurosawa was struck by its similarity with Shakespeare's King Lear, and so what started out as feudal Japan's equivalent of The Godfather ended up as an inspired reworking of the Bard's tragic play.  At the time he made the film, Kurosawa was 75 years old, so it is tempting to identify him with the central character of the film, Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging warlord overly preoccupied with his legacy.

Despite his reputation (acquired in the early 1950s) as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all filmmakers, Akira Kurosawa's career had floundered in the early 1970s after the disastrous failure of Dodesukaden (1970).  It was only with the support of 20th Century Fox that he was able to make his big comeback with Kagemusha, and it was thanks to a French film producer, Serge Silberman, that he managed to make Ran, his one and only Franco-Japanese production.  The film cost 12 million dollars to make, the most expensive Japanese film at that time.  Around 1400 extras and 200 horses were required for the film's ambitious action sequences, some of the most impressive ever to feature in a Japanese film.  Kurosawa admitted that, of all the films he made, this was the most exhausting.  When his wife of 39 years, Yoko Yaguchi, died during the filming, production was suspended for just one day.  The capricious weather (in particular the wind and the fog) on the Mount Fuji location was to prove far more of a challenge.

Kurosawa is renowned for his love of western culture and the skill with which he brings western influences into his films.  Ran is the third of his films to have been inspired by Shakespeare.  The other two were Throne of Blood (1957) and The Bad Sleep Well (1960), which were respectively reworkings of the Bard's Macbeth and Hamlet.  The great American film directors (principally John Ford) were another important influence, as can be seen in almost every action sequence of Kurosawa's samurai films.  Ran is perhaps nearer in style to traditional Japanese cinema than most of the director's previous work.  Apart from the ferocious battle scenes, which were filmed using Kurosawa's usual three-camera approach, most of the film consists of long static takes with virtually no camera movement and very unobtrusive editing (achieving a look that is closer in style to that of Kurosawa's nearest contemporary, Kenji Mizoguchi).  This gives the film a strangely detached feel - the persective is that of a divine power looking down on man's folly from a great height, unable to intervene and change anything.

The film is also clearly influenced by the Noh aesthetic of traditional Japanese theatre.  This is most evident in the exaggerated make up of the principal character Hidetora, who is superbly played by the distinguished stage and screen actor Tatsuya Nakadai.  At the time, Nakadai was in his early 50s (and looked younger), so an elaborate make up job was required to age him so that he could convincingly resemble a man two decades his senior.  Nakadai was one of Kurosawa's favourite actors - he had starred in the director's previous film Kagemusha and had made a memorable appearance as the bad guy in two of his earlier samurai films,  Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962).  The fool to Nakadai's Lear is amusingly played by Pîtâ, a successful Japanese pop star and female impersonator who is better known by the name Peter - he gives the film its few moments of comic relief.  Ran's other standout performance is provided by Mieko Harada, who is magnificent as the utterly venomous Lady Kaede, a close cousin no doubt of Isuzu Yamada's Lady Washizu in Throne of Blood.  Harada accentuates the single-minded ruthlessness of her character by adopting an expressionistic style of acting that is very close to Noh.  This is at its most effective in the unforgettable Noh-like sequence in which Kaede threatens her brother-in-law Jiro with a sword and then seduces him, like an eagle swooping down on its prey.

Ran owes much of its visual impact to its striking locations, which include two of Japan's most important historic landmarks, the ancient castles of Himeji and Kumamoto.  A third castle was built especially for the film, from plastic and wood, on the slopes of Mount Fuji.  The ruins of Azusa castle provided the location for the sacked castle of Lady Sué.  The splendour of the setting is reinforced by Toru Takemitsu's haunting score, which was apparently inspired by the music of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler and conveys an aching sense of loss throughout the film.  As is related in Chris Marker's revealing documentary on the making of Ran, A.K. (1985), Kurosawa had part of a wheat field painted gold for one short scene, but the result was not what the director had hoped for and the scene was cut.

Ran translates approximately as chaos, and it is hard to think of a better title for a film which concerns itself with the consequences of man's untameable lust for power and predilection for destruction.  Although his films often depicted graphic violence, Kurosawa abhorred bloodshed and Ran, like many of his previous films, makes a powerful anti-war statement.  At one point, one of the characters remarks: "In a mad world, only the mad are sane" - an allusion to Kurosawa's previous film I Live in Fear (1955), in which the director expresses his deepest and darkest anxieties over the prospect of a nuclear holocaust.  The fierce orgy of blood and fire that ignite the film in its most dramatic sequences bears testimony to man's penchant for self-destruction and presents a horrifying vision of his ultimate fate unless he can tame his enthusiasm for senseless killing.

Ran may have pleased the critics but it was from being a commercial success; in fact it barely broke even.  The film was nominated for four Oscars in 1986 (in categories that included Best Director and Best Cinematography) but only won an award for its Costume Design.  As a consolation prize, Kurosawa was rewarded with an Honorary Oscar.  The film fared better at the 1987 BAFTAs, where it took the award for the Best Foreign Film.  Today, the film is widely regarded as one of Kurosawa's finest achievements - a cautionary tale on the folly of war which is all the more potent for the film's vibrant use of colour.  Kurosawa did make three films after this, but Ran was destined to be his last masterpiece, a triumphant last hurrah in a glorious career.

Film Synopsis

In 16th century Japan, the aging warlord Hidetora Ichimonji gathers together his family and announces his intention to pass on his power to his three sons, who will each have a share of his kingdom.  To the eldest son Taro he surrenders the important First Castle, whilst his two younger sons, Jiro and Saburo, will take the Second and Third Castles.  When Saburo questions the wisdom of this decision, his father is outraged and immediately banishes him from his lands.  Hidetora soon comes to realise the sense of Saburo's criticism.  Goaded by his wife Lady Kaede, Taro orders Hidetora to renounce his title as Great Lord and disband his personal guard.  Seeing this as an act of betrayal, Hidetora turns his back on Taro and visits his second son Jiro, but receives a similarly cold welcome.  A broken man, Hidetora rejects his two sons and begins to wander from village to village in search of food, only to be told by his faithful servant Tango that Taro has issued an edict threatening death to anyone who helps the former warlord.  When Hidetora and his party reach the Third Castle, they find it all but abandoned, as most of Saburo's men have chosen to follow their lord into exile.  A short while later, the castle is attacked by the combined armies of Taro and Jiro.  In the ensuing massacre, all of Hidetora's guards are killed and Taro is slain by one of his brother's generals.  Hidetora survives and flees from the scene of devastation in a trance-like state.  His mind almost broken, the old man is found wandering in the nearby countryside by Tango and his fool Kyoami.  With Taro dead, Jiro rejoices in the fact that he now has complete control over the entire Ichimonji kingdom.  He does not yet realise that Saburo still poses a threat.  When the final battle comes it will be decisive - the house of Ichimonji will come tumbling down in a storm of blood and fire...