RAN-1985

   Ran, Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 epic re-imagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear in sixteenth-century Japan. Tatsuya Nakadai plays the aging warlord who divides his empire among his three sons and slips into madness as he is neglected, betrayed, and stripped of his dignity. Kurosawa is not merely true to Shakespeare’s story, he brings scenes alive with a cultural twist and a visual mastery, from the pageantry of warriors filling vast fields of green with red and white flags and uniforms to the howling storm that strikes during the warlord’s spiral into madness. The spectacle is brought home with delicately observed performances and beautifully sculpted relationships, an intimacy that gives the epic its soul, and Lionsgate’s release offers an excellent master with stronger colors than have been seen on any previous home video edition (including an earlier Criterion DVD). The experience is supplemented by a collection of substantial documentaries including Chris Marker’s 1985 documentary A.K. (a profile of Kurosawa on the set of Ran), plus the original retrospective documentary Akira Kurosawa: The Epic and the Intimate and documentaries on “The Samurai” and “Art of the Samurai” (all in standard definition). It’s also accompanied by a booklet with an essay by critic David Jenkins.