A magisterial final testament from one of Japan’s greatest directors (though he would make three more smaller scale films), Akira Kurosawa’s Ran was the most expensive Japanese film yet made. Returning to Shakespeare for inspiration – three decades after his version of Macbeth, Throne of Blood (1957) – Kurosawa found his Lear in Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), an ageing warlord who divides his kingdom between his three sons.
Swirling mist, rumbling clouds, shade passing across a battlefield – the director harnesses the elements to tell the tale of Hidetora’s growing madness as his offspring jostle for power. For the remarkable central sequence, when Hidetora’s Third Castle is ambushed by the forces of his elder sons, Kurosawa omits sound, relying on Toru Takemitsu’s score to help impart the dreadful force of the battle.
