Ran

Rating:
Summary: The greatest action movie ever
Review: If you thought Seven Samurai was a masterpiece, you aint seen nothing yet until you've seen RAN. I recall Sydney Pollack's character in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives coming out of the theater with the bimbo woman character trying to explain that this was Kurosawa's King Lear...Yes, somewhat based on Shakespeare's work but very Japanese in nature. The use of color, direction, cinematography, and acting all KICK BUTT!!!

From Lady Kaede to Saburo to Hidetori--all standout performances. I love this film. I get chills just hearing the soundtrack before and during battle scenes. A truly awesome feat of cinema.

Rating:
Summary: Good but not great.....
Review: This is a good rendition of Shakespear's epic "King Lear". But the visual quality of the movie on DVD is fair or mediocre at best. First of all, the movie is not in it's original widescreen format. You can obviously tell part of the image is cut out. Also the movie looks dated, for instance it was made back in 1985 but it looks like it was made in 1970.
The plot is a little hard to follow because the brothers look very similar and you will mistake one for the other and lady Sue & lady Kaede also look very similar. The acting also was not believable at times. The battle scenes are well done though!
The price is a little more than what you would pay normally for a DVD movie.
Why are foreign films always more expensive?

Rating:
Summary: "Is somebody crying?"
Review: Yes... yes I am.

Akira Kurosawa's Ran is one of those very rare films that is capable of making me actually stop and say, "no way." Kurosawa has managed to craft a liberal retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear into a heartwrenching, almost totally crushing vision of the pathetic human condition that actually makes Shakespeare's point better than the Bard did himself. [Wait on those torches and pitchforks! Hear me out!] By removing the Edmund and Edgar subplot, Kurosawa has also oblitered the single hopeful aspect of the play [Edgar triumphs, Edmund gets his just desserts]. What remains is the central tale of an old king (not a hugely sympathetic figure thanks to his rather brutal past and on-screen pride, but still worthy of respect) being ground into the dirt and, eventually, killed. (The death of Lear is no less a murder than the death of Hidetora.) This happens through the treachery, avarice, and sheer lust for power of the king's children, who eventually drive him insane. In one sense, this is an extremely unpleasant movie to watch-- as the last shot so articulately shows us, the central message of the film is that "man is born crying and when he has cried enough, he dies." Religion and friendship fall by the wayside in a film just as likely to make you weep from the sheer power of its argument as from the force of its filmaking.

...Which is nonetheless considerable. The much-referenced assault on the Third Castle is without a doubt one of the most stunningly perfect sequences ever put on film-- stunning no less because of its graphic depiction of the horrors of war than because of the lingering shots of the crazed Hidetora, unable even to kill himself, capable only of sitting in abject horror as flaming arrows rip through the air near him and all of his companions die around him. The sheer amount of suffering conveyed to us, both through the color palette of firey reds and smokey blacks and through the soundless screams of the wounded holding their own limbs or crawling towards the pig troughs for a final drink, is simply unbearable. The bright red blood draws attention to both itself and the entire subtle wrongness of the sequence-- is this really human nature? Hidetora's reaction to the carnage becomes the viewer's own-- wordless, wide-eyed astonishment. Wide-eared, as well, since the sequence would not be half so affected if not accompanied by a slow, moving tune that only makes us more aware of the noises of battle that we can't hear, but imagine more vividly than we would like. The rifle shot that ends this tune (generally inciting a slight jerk on the part of the audience) is mechanized and harsh, and signals (after a short flurry of sound) a blasted silence as Hidetora walks, stunned, out of the castle. This sequence, while a perfect example of the amount of pure artistry present in this film, is by no means alone in its astonishingness; the entire film is a work of genius.

As for the much-maligned DVD transfer, I'm afraid that I have no real basis of comparison as I have only ever seen the Masterworks Edition. As a little bit of a purist (I don't watch pan-and-scan), I do find myself disturbed by the things that other reviews point out; however, they obviously detracted little from my viewing experience. All-in-all, I would say that the current DVD is passable, but I look forward with great anticipation to a future version that truly respects this masterpeice (and doesn't have obvious subtitle typos that make the viewer snicker).

In short, this movie is quite possibly my candidate for "greatest film ever made." It paints a deeply despairing, nihilistic picture of both human nature and the world as a whole, and does so with a brutally ruthless frankness that I have seen almost nowhere else. Artistically, it is practically without fault-- powerful and moving, it is practically a "how-to" of effective moviemaking. I cannot recommend Ran too highly.

Rating:
Summary: The DVD Butchering of a Masterpiece
Review: -

I'm not going to sit here and write about the greatness of Kurosawa's RAN - it's pretty clear we're dealing with the lifetime masterwork of one of film's few true geniuses.

I want to talk about this "restored" transfer. This butchered DVD presentation.

First, the aspect ratio is wrong, as has been mentioned before. It's not wide enough. We're obviously missing image on both sides of the screen.

But what bothers me is the color transfer. The colors are indeed more vivid than previous transfers, and the image sharper, but the overall effect has the film looking brittle and highly over-saturated.

The contrast ratio is very high. Much of the darker portions of the screen vanish into black. I know there is image there - I've seen it. But, the boneheads who supervised this "restoration" obviously have no clue how to do the job properly.

And, to top it off, this print was NOT struck from the original negative, but from a release print! You can tell because the projectionist cue marks (those holes in the upper right of the frame) are on still on this film!

So, no original negative, bad transfer (the compression is very bad - lots of artifacts), bad color correction, wrong aspect ratio,....

AND, no extras on the DVD.

Take your pick.

This is one film everyone who loves movies must own. Yet, where do we go for a decent print?

You tell me.


-

Rating:
Summary: 5 Star Film, 2 Star DVD
Review: After reading many of the negative reviews on Amazon concerning the DVD transfer of Ran, I expected problems when I watched the DVD on my 32" flat screen TV. The Masterworks Edition is the only version of Ran I have seen and I was not disappointed with the quality of the transfer. Of course, I need to see the film as it was intended to be seen by Kurosawa to fully understand the criticisms of the many experts who have complained about the various tenchical inadequacies of the Masterworks Edition of the film.

Additionally, several reviewers have complained about anachronisms such as rifles being used before they were invented. Others suggest that Ran is a poor adaptation of King Lear, the play on which Ran is based. Many anachronisms can be found in Shakespeare's plays. This inaccuracy does not lessen the value of the work. Also, I did not expect to see a perfect adaptation of King Lear. Instead, I was interested in Kurosawa's artistic vision of the classic themes in one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Ran, like King Lear, is complex and one viewing will not be enough to understand completely what happens in the film. A brief synopsis of the plot follows.

An aging Japanese war lord decides to divide up his kingdom among his three sons. His oldest and middle son accept the gift, but the youngest son argues against the old man giving up his power and authority. The youngest son is banished and the two older sons quickly turn against their father and force him to leave his castle to fend for himself by living off the land. The father is astonished by this unhappy turn of events and he goes to war against his sons, losing his entire guard, wife, concubines, and servants. He is left with only a court jester and a faithful retainer to help him survive.

Ran, like King Lear, is a tragedy from first to last and my brief sketch only suggests important elements of the plot. Whom can we trust? Certainly not those people who appear to be friends, but have their own interest at heart and who are willing to betray us to further their own interests. Those who disagree with us, often at great risk and personal sacrifice, may be the people we can count on for support in difficult times.

The War Lord tries to understand the total disaster that leaves him desolate. His gods do not help him. Like Job, he discovers that it is impossible to understand God's ways to man. Also like Job, he is completely ruined even though he thinks he has done the right thing.

Kurosawa is one of the great directors of the 20th Century and Ran is one of his best films. Highly recommented.