Ran

Akira Kurosawa's version of King Lear but in ancient Japan!

배신은 반드시 자신에게 돌아오게 되어있다. 이 고금의 진리는 어느 시대에도, 어느 규모에서든 누구에게나 참이라는 것을 너무나 잘 묘사한 대가의 작품

색에서 오는 강렬함과 찢는 듯한 감정표현들

“It is the gods who weep. They see us killing each other over and over since time began. They can’t save us from ourselves…it is how the world is made.” How I felt watching this movie is how you should feel when reading King Lear; i think it captures so much so well and really speaks to the human condition, which I think is one of the strengths of the original source material. The battle in which the third castle was taken was also such a cool sequence — really lived up to the films name. This movie also doesn’t suffer at all from a lack of building up characters; i found Kaede to be the most interesting character for me, but i think anyone could spend a lot of time on each character and get something valuable from Kurosawa’s adaptation. I loved the end scene with Buddha and Tsurumaru — he could never find solace in religion the way his sister could, and his blindness is a constant reminder of what Hidetora did to his family. in his state of madness, Hidetora cannot even remember what he has done to Tsurumaru’s family, and so Tsurumaru is isolated through lack of sight, no family, and on top of that he can’t even get real closure/acknowledgement. The last scene of him dropping the picture of Buddha was overall a very pessimistic (and Shakespearean I guess) view on humanity: blind, alone, and no faith.  king lear is my favorite shakespeare play so i’m so glad to have found an adaptation that does it justice (i think Anthony Hopkins's’ king lear is my favorite take on the character, but this movie is my fave overall adaptation).  this is also my first introduction to Kurosawa films — i can’t wait to watch Seven Samurai next.