by Nathanael Smith

Created on: September 03, 2008

Plot: A Japanese Warlord hands over his power to his three sons, but one of them dares to speak the truth, and is banished. The warlord soon begins to feel the consequences, and it takes a toll on the country, and his sanity.

King Lear is a masterpiece of literature, a tragedy of epic scope, a moving study of relationships and heartbreaking look at the downfall of the great. Ran, Akira Kurosawa's version of King Lear set in feudal Japan, matches Shakespeare's work thematically and emotionally, but adds to it stunning visuals, brilliant acting and a very distinctive style. It's enough to silence anyone who would claim that Shakespeare is dull, and will certainly make people who avoid foreign cinema re-think their position. Ran is everything you could want from an epic.

What you cannot help but notice from the beginning the are absolutely stunning visuals. It opens with some hunters sitting silently in the hills of Japan, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. The scope of what Kurosawa can achieve with colour photography is immediately evident, and it's brilliant. Ever strong on symbolism, Kurosawa shows us an old patriarch of a boar getting shot down. What this represents becomes obvious fast. The characters are established in colour codes. Jiro, for instance, is the red son. This leads up to some incredible battle scenes, a blur of colours that would never have been possible in The Seven Samurai. Combining this with the awesome landscapes of Japan, and the meticulously shot and designed castles, and the spray of bright red at a decapitation (the best death scene ever) you get one of the best looking films quite possibly ever.

The characters are all believable and compelling. In the central role of the king gone mad, Hidetora is a heartbreaking figure, a warning to all that pride comes before a fall. The scenes between him and Kyoami are tragicomic, and as Hidetora slowly fades away, it is often bizarrely funny, at the same time as being sad. The best character is possibly the greatest female in cinema, Lady Kaede. Malevolent, psychotic, manipulative and wierdly seductive, she is the dominant, controlling force in the film. Graceful yet dangerous, Lady Kaede is a strong woman amongst hundreds of weak men. Saburo is the good son, the one not afraid to speak his mind, the Cordelia of the piece he is one of the few likeable characters on show. All the subplots and minor characters are brought together masterfully to create an epic that despite the scale, is disturbingly human.

Yet in spite of all of this, Ran drags languorously through the middle act. At times it slows down, and the otherwise decent pacing is thrown off course. There are perhaps one too many shots of Hidetora with a mad look in his eyes, and one or two scenes are completely extraneous. However, epics are allowed to be slow from time to time, and many long films are in the canon of the greatest films of all time. Just look at Lord of the Rings. Not only that, but the character Kyoami can be incredibly irritating from time to time. Acting like a Greek chorus, commenting on the events of the film, he is sometimes an unwelcome presence in an otherwise dramatic scene. That said, he grows on you throughout the film, and in reality, this is a minor quibble in an otherwise stunning film.

So What I Mean Is: Ran is a gorgeous and glorious epic, with brilliant characters, surprising touches of humour, and a very human tragedy at its core. Don't let the slower scenes put you off what is very possibly the most beautiful film ever.

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