Like most people I enjoy cinema but more recently (and with all this spare time on my hands) I’ve been looking to dig deeper, broaden my horizons and finally tick that film off my watchlist. MUBI has been a great gateway for this with their finely tuned curated subscription service. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough, especially if you have an interest in world cinema, classics, arthouse and what not. A film currently streaming on the site is Akira Kurosawa’s last great masterpiece, Ran. After checking out the trailer it’s safe to say I was absolutely buzzing to watch the film so one afternoon, I settled in for the 2 hour 42 minute epic.
In short, Ran is based on Shakespeare’s King Lear and tells the story of a great warlord and his three sons, pictured above in their individual colours of red, yellow and blue. Yep, very No Bad Days indeed. Without giving too much away the son’s become antagonists to their father and start to fight over land, who get’s what castle, who doesn’t. You know, that classic age old sibling dispute.
With absolutely mind boggling cinematography and use of colour, almost every shot I found myself drooling over. Having filmed the majority on Mount Fugi, you never actually see the mountain itself but definitely get a sense of it’s presence, like an unseen character itself. Kurosawa enlisted Tōru Takemitsu and the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra for the task of the soundtrack and as you’d expect, phenomenal. Having come out in 1985 their is certainly some dodgy makeup going on (LOL at the skull caps) and some cheesy special effects in the battle scenes but that just adds to it all in my opinion. A highly, highly enjoyable experience.
Original 1985 movie posters for ‘Ran’ from Italy (left) and Poland (right). Bonus round: watch the behind the scenes doc ‘A.K.’ afterwards, also available on MUBI.