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Ran (Masterworks Edition) Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu Director: Akira Kurosawa Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Color, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Running Time: 160 minutes Studio: Wellspring Media, In Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15 Buy from Amazon |
 "The Greatest Adaptation of Shakespeare to Film""Ran" (Chaos) is the greatest cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare and a masterpiece in its own right. In adapting the broad scenario of "King Lear" to a setting in Sixteenth Century Japan, Akira Kurosawa felt free to manipulate it to his own purposes, leading to a film that is perhaps even more bleak than the play. First and foremost "Ran" is a visually stunning film, unencumbered by the received tradition of Shakespearean language, which never translates well onto the cinema screen, he has allowed the scenario to develop into images that are beautiful and horrific. Filmed on the slopes of Mount Fuji there is a sense of unreality, or nightmare about the whole epic, as though it is taking place in a mythic space, at once recognisable and alien. For a director best known for his black and white movies ("Seven Samurai", "Rashomon"), Kurosawa surprisingly uses color to breathtaking virtuoso effect. The scenes of soldiers flooding in waves across the volcanic wasteland of Mount Fuji carrying vivid blue, red or yellow flags are amongst the most extraordinary ever filmed. The battle scenes shock and astonish, not least because Kurosawa's use of sound is so exquisite and original; many of the most horrendous images of battle are shown without sound effects with only an elegiac musical accompaniment. Far from sanitising them, the effect is to shock you out of the viewing habits formed watching so many other "war" movies. Yet "Ran" is so much more than a broad epic, or war movie. The more intimate scenes are carried off with understated conviction, the sly hypocrisy hidden behind formality and convention is conveyed in highly poised and stylised interior shots. This film can be both visceral (prepare yourself for the beheading of Lady Kaede: as visually explosive as anything by Tarantino, and set within a film that is more than mere surface) and restrained, depending on the nature of the scene. There are moments of quiet and tenderness that resonate long after the film had ended. It is odd that so few successful films have been made from Shakespeare. The pre-eminent playwright of the western canon has translated beautifully into opera and stage directors can continually find fresh things to say about the plays themselves, yet in general film had been hopelessly incapable of doing anything of note with Shakespeare. Think of the ghastly declamatory rhetoric of Laurence Olivier in "Henry V", or the inane pop video that Baz Lurmann made from "Romeo and Juliet", not to mention Kenneth Brannagh's tediously self-important "Hamlet". Somehow Kurosawa succeeds where all these others fail. His earlier "Throne of Blood" was a beautifully realised adaptation of "Macbeth" to the Samurai period in Japan: "Ran" builds on that achievement and surpasses it. Perhaps the fact that Kurosawa was Japanese allowed him more creative license to work with Shakespeare, able to approach it simply as valid material for film making, and not as the shibboleth that it is to western artists. In Ran we have the late masterpiece of one of the greatest and most important film makers. It is a distilled and precise work, powerful, visceral, contemplative, epic and intimate. In short this is film making on a par with the greatest art. Ran shows us what mainstream film making can achieve, but so rarely does.  "Masterpiece of a film, bizarre DVD rendition"First of all, I want to say that this is one of the greatest films of the past 20 years, in any language or genre. It is a true masterpiece and obviously the work of a master director (who also directed Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ikiru). The imagery is astounding (and NO computer special effects, folks, it's all real), the sound is haunting and eerie, and the storytelling impeccable. For newcomers, this is essentially a re-telling of the King Lear storyline (Shakespeare) but in a medieval Japanese setting with warlords and samurai. It is an action film of sorts, but despite the obvious power of the action, the deepest strength of this film must lay within the tragic drama of the story. This is not a happy film nor a feel-good film but it is a film that will remind everyone in these days of MTV-editing and flashiness and loud bangs how powerful a film can truly be when in the hands of a master. Ran is not for everyone, of course. It has a deliberate pace and is set in a non-English background, which makes it foreign to a lot of Americans. It is Japanese, so the cuts are long and scenes are allowed to play out. People who don't like slow films (example, Kubrick films or Russian films) might not like this aspect of the movie Ran. The style of filmmaking harkens to older days of cinema, but then again, I've always thought the older films were better than today's movies anyways. I just want to say a few words about the DVD itself. It is truly bizarre and obviously one of the first wave of DVDs when DVDs were still new. The transfer is not so good. There are dust and scratch marks here and there, but I can accept this on an older foreign film; picky DVD owners may not. It is also non-anamorphic and is essentially just an extremely good VHS copy placed on DVD format. At least it's in widescreen. But it is a weird widescreen, which instead of being centered, takes up the TOP 2/3 of the TV screen, with subtitles on the bottom. This takes some getting used to but it's acceptable. The WORST thing, though, which may definitely turn off potential buyers, is that the middle of the film has a really soft focused look to it, as if it were projected through a widescreen lens with condensation in it. The middle portion totally looks like poor VHS quality. Oddly enough, the first and last thirds of the film look okay in terms of focus. Was this some blunder by the DVD company in the transfer process? I can't believe they let this slip by. Oh well. Anyways, final analysis...the film gets a strong 5 stars but the unusual transfer bumps the final rating down to 4 stars. If you are a film buff like myself, you may overlook the shortcomings of the DVD and buy it anyways, especially since a re-issue is not going to happen anytime soon. "Great Transfer - No Goodies"Ran is a spectical of celluloid. One of the most beautiful color pictures ever captured on film and not even Kurosawas best! If you are not familiar; Ran is the story of King Lear set in Japan. The shear weight and artistic power of this film gives it 4 stars but as a DVD owner I am very dissapointed. Beautiful Transfer and a cool trailer but poor, poor, extras. My suggestion, buy the DVD if you cant live without Kurosawa. If you are a collector, pray that Criterion gets their hands on this puppy. "Kurosawa Masterpiece"Fans of Kurosawa's black and white samurai films starring the incomprable Toshiro Mifune will find this film to be their equals. An Adaptation of Shakespeares King Lear, Kurosawa's take on the play is extraordinary. A stunning Japanese film with very vivid colors and superb shots of the japanese landscape, architecutre and culture. Akira Kurosawa pulls no punches in creating this modern masterpiece. New audiences to Kurosawa's films will be stunned, and old fans will be spellbound at the DVD quality. A must have for anyone who enjoys great movies. p.s. Lady Kaede is one of the most wicked characters in modern film history. "watch it with an open mind"Ran is an adaptation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy "King Lear." The movie takes place in pre-Tokugawa Japan and Lord Hidetora, an old and cruel warlord, is in apex of his reign. However, on a beautiful and calm afternoon he abdicates his power to Tarou, his oldest son. His second son, Jirou, agrees with the arrangement, but the youngest Saburo does not. Saburo wonders how his father can believe this will go over peacefully when all he and his brother has ever known is war, where people backstab, kill, and are merciless to achieve power and win. Lord Hidetora, angry that his son had the audcacity to doubt his decision banishes him from his sight. I can't give away too much of the plot but from then on exits order and enters chaos. Watching the movie one wonders how there could be anything but chaos. When Hidetora abdicated his seat to Tarou , he broke the Confucian order of relationship between young/old, father/son, teacher/student and trouble aggregates from there. Although the main theme of this movie is chaos, I like to think that secondary theme is relationship (broken relationship causes chaos). This movie examines the relationship between father and son, between siblings, husband and wife, between women, ruler and the subjugates and explores existence of chaos in many level. There are many reason to like this movie. It's beautiful, the cinematography is just breath taking. It's intellectual, cultural, and emotional. At times it moves slow, but you have to remember it's all done with artistic purposes. I was eight and was probably watching Mickey Mouse and playing in the sandbox when Akira Kurosawa's Ran (Chaos) first opened in theaters. I regret not having had the opportunity to have watched and appreciate the movie first hand like many before me, but I'm glad I'm young enough to continue the appreciation of this great movie for the posterity. When I first watched it I was so impressed and the memory of the movie haunted me for days. I replayed the scenes over and over in my mind and re-expirienced the anger, anxiety, and grief everytime. I guess this would be a good time to note that this is not a happy movie. My sister thinks it's stupid to watch/read anything but stories with happy-endings, she argues why put yourself in such a miserable disposition when you can be happy. I disagree, I'd rather feel joy first hand and experience the grief artificially, also the experience puts your life in check, you begin to appreciate the good more earnestly. On a random note, Peter who plays the Fool (joker) is a son of a famous Noh actor. His father is (was? I'm not sure if he's still alive) a National Living Treasure of Japan. And actors who played Saburo and Lord Hidetora was in "Kagemusha" (Shadow Warrior), another movie by Akira Kurosawa, also a great movie. As for the DVD quality, it's not that great, it's slightly grainy and fuzzy. Still, you are getting it for the quality of the movie, not the presentation, right? |
