Legendary Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, has given us many cinematic gifts over the course of his illustrious career. From opening the doorway for other Asian films to American audiences with Rashomon (1950) to the epic to end all epics with Seven Samurai (1954), Kurosawa’s films, big and small are always a treat. From the twenty or so Kurosawa films I’ve seen so far I can honestly say that he has yet to disappoint and today I would like to share my thoughts on my personal favorite entry from the awesome Kurosawa cannon: Ran (1985).
Kurosawa adapted many foreign works including Dostoevsky (The Idiot, 1951 and Red Beard,1965), Gorky (The Lower Depths, 1957), Tolstoy (Ikiru, 1952), Hammett (Yojimbo, 1961), McBain (High and Low, 1963), Arsenyev (Dersu Uzala, 1975), and, of course, Shakespeare (Throne of Blood, 1957, The Bad Sleep Well, 1960, and Ran, 1985). Fellow Chronicle writer, Kenny Cooper, championed Kurosawa’s take on “Macbeth” with his review of Throne of Blood, and like that film, Ran sets the Bard’s epic tale of an old king’s folly against a vivid feudal Japanese backdrop. Ran (translated as “chaos”) is an ambitious and sumptuous retelling of “King Lear,” but although based on the classic English stage drama, Kurosawa masterfully adapts it to the big screen while making it all his own (it is also based on Japanese legends of Mori Motonari).
The story opens with the aging Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) in the middle of a boar hunt atop a sea of rolling, green hills. We hear piercing flute tones and the gallop of horses. Lord Hidetora is feeling his age and reveals to his hunting party that he will be stepping down as Lord and giving his three castles to his three sons Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. His son Saburo (Daisuke Ryu), servant Tango (Masayuki Yui), and fool (jester) Kyoami (Peter) alone express their concerns regarding this abrupt decision. Hidetora treats their concerns as treachery and dissent and banishes his son and servant.
Taro Ichimonji (Akira Terao) becomes ruler of the first castle, but his manipulative wife, Lady Kaede (Meiko Harada), twists the foolish son into demanding more control and usurping Hidetora’s power further by forcing him to remove all his authority as Great Lord. Distraught and backed into a legal corner by Taro and his men, Hidetora, angrily signs away his power and disowns Taro and takes his entourage to Jiro’s (Jinpachi Nezu) castle. Jiro treats Hidetora most unfavorably, as if his own father were just another ruler under suspicion of attack. Jiro’s Buddhist wife, Lady Sue (Yoshiko Miyazaki), alone shows compassion toward the betrayed Lord, but Hidetora has trouble accepting her kindness because of his lingering guilt for murdering her family and conquering her house. Hidetora leaves the second castle in a huff and takes his hungry entourage out into the countryside, but his pride will not allow him to accept charity or food from farmers. The banished Tango shows up again to warn the former Lord of his sons’ plans to destroy him and each other. Kyoami cracks a joke and gets banished along with Tango. In an act of desperation Hidetora takes his entourage to the third castle, the castle that would have gone to Saburo had he not been banished.
In what is sure to be one of the finest battle scenes ever filmed, the third castle is stormed by Taro’s army and Jiro’s army. Kurosawa drops all sound out of the film for this horrific battle. All we hear is Toru Takemitsu’s haunting score as we flash from silent bloodied soldiers and concubines and gunfire to the ominous clouds moving across the sky as if to proclaim the heavens’ impetus or indifference to interfere in the violent horrors of men. Hidetora’s forces are completely annihilated and, amidst the violence Hidetora scrambles to find a blade with which to commit seppuku. The castle is burned to the ground (Kurosawa actually burned down the castle he had constructed for the film at the base of Mt. Fuji), Taro is assassinated by one of Jiro’s men, and Lord Hidetora goes mad and walks out of his ruined fortress and into the wilderness alone and broken.
Tango and Kyoami find their beloved Lord wandering around in the wilds, completely mad. They and the exiled Saburo are the only ones left who remain loyal to Hidetora. They lodge with a blind peasant in the hopes that the Lord will become well again. In a most tragic nightmarish turn, they discover that the peasant is Lady Sue’s brother, Tsurumaru (Takashi Nomura). He lives alone because Hidetora killed his family and gouged his eyes out years ago. When Hidetora recognizes Tsurumaru and sees his reluctant mercy the Lord flees in anguish.
Meanwhile the conniving Lady Kaede is manipulating her new husband, Jiro. She demands he kill his former wife, Lady Sue, and that he further destroy Hidetora and go to war with Saburo (who has made an alliance with another Lord and has been amassing his army). Hidetora plummets further into madness and torment at the evil deeds of his bloody past as he wanders the old battlefields of his youth, while Lady Kaede meticulously moves the political pawns across the ever bloodstained chessboard. Unlike Lady Sue who has found the power of forgiveness through Buddhism, Lady Kaede seeks revenge against the entire Ichimonji clan for the wrongs committed against her and her murdered family.
It all culminates in another huge battle between Jiro’s army and Saburo’s army (who is also marching with the Fujimaki and Ayabe armies who are interested in Ichimonji land for themselves). The war wages, many men are double-crossed, and many more are killed. In classic Shakespearean tragedy fashion, almost everybody dies, but not before the ultimate in tragic and horrific letdown can be revealed to them and they writhe in the grisly realization that all this evil and bloodshed was birthed from their own misguidance and blind foolishness. As the few surviving characters collect themselves and recall the tragic course of events that has become their lives they cry out to the heavens and speculate on the motives of the gods and awful folly of men. The death of the Ichimonji clan and the bloodshed of the innocent are truly stingingly tragic and the tragedy does not reach its zenith until the very final shot. It is a moment of ultimate insanity and despair.
Ran is a superbly directed, wonderfully acted, stunningly visual, lavish, and expansively epic film that feels like a knife cutting into your soul. And I mean that in a good way. Certain images stick with you and certain emotions will not be easily shaken. This is a film that aggressively assaults the senses and challenges views of humanity with lush Shakespearean strokes. The way Ran uses characters, colors, juxtaposition, sound, music, and violence is truly remarkable. I consider Ran to be Akira Kurosawa’s magnum opus and it should be required viewing for anyone seriously interested in film. Some of the best of Kurosawa coupled with some of the best of Shakespeare can be a draining, but ultimately rewarding experience and I hope you experience it too.
Originally published for “The Alternative Chronicle” December 8, 2009.
