Ran
Academy Award × 1
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.
What critics thought
Virtually every critic who encountered Ran treated it as a landmark — a Shakespeare adaptation that earns its epic scale through visual invention and moral weight rather than spectacle alone. The rare dissent came from those who found Kurosawa's late-career grandeur tipping into excess, but that view has been almost entirely swamped by the film's growing reputation as one of cinema's great achievements.
“Though big in physical scope and of a beauty that suggests a kind of drunken, barbaric lyricism, Ran has the terrible logic and clarity of a morality tale seen in tight close-up, of a myth that, while being utterly specific and particular in its time and place, remains ageless, infinitely adaptable.”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“In many respects, it's Kurosawa's most sumptuous film, a feast of color, motion and sound: Considering that its brethren include Kagemusha, Seven Samurai and Dersu Uzala, the achievement is extraordinary.”
Shawn Levy·Portland Oregonian
“In Ran, the horrors of life are transformed by art into beauty. It is finally so moving that the only appropriate response is silence.”
Bob Graham·San Francisco Chronicle
“I find it as an almost total failure by a genius in his old age”
John Simon·National Review
Genres
Action, Drama, War
Cast & Crew
DirectorAkira Kurosawa
StarringTatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryū, Mieko Harada
ComposerToru Takemitsu
Ran
Academy Award × 1
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.
What critics thought
Virtually every critic who encountered Ran treated it as a landmark — a Shakespeare adaptation that earns its epic scale through visual invention and moral weight rather than spectacle alone. The rare dissent came from those who found Kurosawa's late-career grandeur tipping into excess, but that view has been almost entirely swamped by the film's growing reputation as one of cinema's great achievements.
“Though big in physical scope and of a beauty that suggests a kind of drunken, barbaric lyricism, Ran has the terrible logic and clarity of a morality tale seen in tight close-up, of a myth that, while being utterly specific and particular in its time and place, remains ageless, infinitely adaptable.”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“In many respects, it's Kurosawa's most sumptuous film, a feast of color, motion and sound: Considering that its brethren include Kagemusha, Seven Samurai and Dersu Uzala, the achievement is extraordinary.”
Shawn Levy·Portland Oregonian
“In Ran, the horrors of life are transformed by art into beauty. It is finally so moving that the only appropriate response is silence.”
Bob Graham·San Francisco Chronicle
“I find it as an almost total failure by a genius in his old age”
John Simon·National Review
Genres
Action, Drama, War
Cast & Crew
DirectorAkira Kurosawa
StarringTatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryū, Mieko Harada
ComposerToru Takemitsu