Movielogr

Rating: 8.5 stars

Tags

Japan epic castle revenge greed murder betrayal horses madness imdb 250

All movies seen on 12/08/2013

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Ran (1985)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Drama | Action | War

Most recently watched by GMOM65

Overview

With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare’s King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa’s late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.

Rated R | Length 160 minutes

Actors

Tatsuya Nakadai | Akira Terao | Jinpachi Nezu | Daisuke Ryû | Mieko Harada | Yoshiko Miyazaki | Mansai Nomura | Hisashi Igawa | Pîtâ | Masayuki Yui | Kazuo Katô | Norio Matsui | Toshiya Ito | Heihachiro Suzuki | Kenji Kodama | Haruko Tôgô | Reiko Nanjo | Tokie Kanda | Sawako Kochi | Kumeko Otowa | Takeshi Katô | Jun Tazaki | Hitoshi Ueki | Takao Zushi | Yoshitaka Zushi | Tetsuo Yamashita | Akihiko Sugizaki | Masaaki Sasaki | Satoru Fukasaku | Susumu Terajima

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Viewing Notes

Had always wondered how this 1985 Kurosawa film ranked so highly in the IMDb 250 over most of his other films. Now I know. I don’t use “epic” often but this is classic example of the term. It’s sad that we will likely never see any more movies with this type of ambition and scope and production. Today all these armies would be done in CG. I’m looking forward to reading up on this film because of the production. How many actors and extras were used? Hundreds.

I’m sad that it took me so long to finally watch this because it is so damn good. The long runtime (plus late Kurosawa) kept me away but I’m already savoring the next viewing hopefully on Blu (the Criterion DVD isn’t the best PQ esp. for a movie this gorgeous). I wish Criterion still had the rights to produce a Blu with all the extras because I’d love to dig into those.

Still amazed how absorbing this film becomes for such a slow burn. It’s entirely a character study hitting on all basic desires and emotions of humans with emphasis on greed, revenge and remorse. Such a damn good movie it’s astonishing what Kurosawa was still able to do late in his career.

I’ll probably pick up the Blu release from StudioCanal if I can confirm the PQ is an improvement.

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