RAN (1985)
Direction: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu, Mieko Harada, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Hisashi Igawa
Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Masato Ide, and Hideo Oguni
Akira Kurosawa's Ran
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
"Critical cribbing" is a term I coined in regard to the tendency of critics, in all fields, to not engage a work of art directly, but rather to fall back on lazily repeating claims that have been made by others about the work they are reviewing. Sometimes, these are positive blurbs; other times, they are bits of misinformation repeated endlessly — e.g., the (nameless) characters' names in films such as Alain Resnais' Last Year in Marienbad and Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup.
Typical examples of critical cribbing can be found in reviews of Akira Kurosawa’s 27th (of 30) films, Ran (1985), a very good effort despite problems with character development and some mediocre acting. The critical cribbing comes from the almost offhanded way most reviews of the film claim that Ran is a retelling of William Shakespeare’s King Lear. This is simply not so. [Note: Spoilers ahead.]
Yes, there certainly is an influence, but a retelling implies a certain fidelity to the source. Kurosawa, as he often did, improved on the source material with his own touches — mostly adding background, depth, contrast, and historical ties to Japanese culture. In short, Shakespeare’s play is a parable filled with caricatures. Ran is not. And aside from the fact that these supplements vastly improve Shakespeare’s overrated play, I seriously doubt most of the critics who nonchalantly toss about those claims have even read or seen an adaptation of King Lear. Else, Ran’s many divergences from and expansions of the plot would have been apparent.
The film’s title means "chaos," and that’s not a bad description of the action. The lack of character development in a realistic way, unlike Kurosawa’s other late epic, Kagemusha, is a serious impediment to claims for Ran’s greatness. In fact, Kagemusha’s strength is its realistic characters and historical fidelity; those make it a better film than Ran, even if, like Ran, it is a bit too long. Another problem: Ran never plumbs within the human psyche the way Seven Samurai, Ikiru, and The Bad Sleep Well do.
On the surface, its plot, like King Lear’s, is simple enough. An aging warlord, Great Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai), decides to split his fiefdom in three, giving equal shares to his three sons: Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), and Saburo (Daisuke Ryu). They are to get the first, second, and third family castles. Taro is to be head of the clan while Hidetora remains warlord emeritus.
The two younger brothers are to support Taro, and an ancient Japanese metaphor is used to demonstrate this — Hidetora shows that a single arrow is easily broken, but three together are not. Yet, while he cannot break it with his bare hands, Saburo shows he can break the trio across his knee. While Taro and Jiro flatter their father, Saburo says he is foolish for trusting his sons with power — he is thus banished.
Taro’s wife, Lady Kaede (Mieko Harada), who was a prize won when Hidetora vanquished her own clan and seized their family castle, now unfurls her own plan for revenge, and pushes her husband to castrate his father’s power. Suddenly, the old man senses he made an error. More family intrigue follows.
Where Ran differs most notably from King Lear is in its depth of background. The film is based upon a real-life warlord who had three loyal sons he wanted to bestow his empire to — an inversion of the Lear mythos. Curiously, Kurosawa claimed he only became aware of King Lear midway through the filmmaking process, when others mentioned it to him. He also did not like the fact that Lear’s characters had no credible backstory, and that the three daughters in Lear (Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia) were rather one-dimensional. While Taro, Jiro, and Saburo could have been fleshed out more, especially since nearly twenty-five minutes pass in the opening ritual scenes, they are certainly more realistic and well sketched-out characters than Shakespeare’s siblings.