Most parents would probably agree that having children can create a whole mess of problems. Two foreign films currently generating much interest, Akira Kurosawa's Ran and Jean-Luc Godard's Hail, Mary (Je Vous Salue, Marie) indicate just how bothersome offspring can sometimes be. Ran is Kurosawa's reworking of Shakespeare's King Lear, and its theme is "How sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child," with some of the director's own unique twists. Godard's film, also a retooling of an old story, concerns itself more with prebirth problems, and there are problems indeed when the mother-to-be turns out to be a virgin.
At the age of seventy-five, Akira Kurosawa is certainly one of cinema's grand old men, with a career spanning over forty years and twenty-seven films, including Rashoman, Yojimbo, and Seven Samurai. But because of his reputation as a relentless perfectionist who required large (by Japanese standards) budgets to make films that were "too Western" Kurosawa had fallen out of favor with the Japanese film industry by the seventies. Following his departure from the Pearl Harbor epic Tora! Tora! Tora! and the failure of Dodeskaden in the seventies, Kurosawa went through a period of depression and self-doubt that resulted in a suicide attempt in 1971.
Cinematic salvation came from the Soviet Union, which approached Kurosawa about filming a project on Soviet soil. The result was Dersu Uzala, which won the 1975 Academy Award for Best foreign Film. Kagemusha (1980), a Japanese feudal epic funded in part by Kurosawa admirers George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, was another critical success and a dress rehersal for Ran, Kurosawa's samurai adaptation of Lear.
Ran, which translates roughly as "chaos," has been ten years in the making and an obsession for its director, who worked out its sets, storyboards, and themes during the filming of Kagemusha. The resulting mix of Lear and the Japanese legend of Morikawa, a feudal lord with three sons, justifies the time and effort involved. Kurosawa has worked with the Japanese feudal period often, as in Throne of Blood, his version of Shakespeare's MacBeth. Thus, while Ran might support the theory that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, it does indicate that at least he will perform the old ones. Ran is a tale told by a master, full of sound and fury and signifying that even sweeping epic tales can be pumped full of very human blood.
Tatsuya Nakadai is Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, a feudal warlord who has finally consolidated a life of bloody conquests into a peaceful kingdom. Content with the lot that his violent past has left him, he decides to pass his throne to his oldest son, Taro-Akira Terao. He tells his other two sons, Jiro and Saburo (played by Jinpachi Nezu and Daisuke Ryu) that they must be prepared to support their older brother whenever necessary.
Only Saburo is willing to speak out against the folly of such a plan and the belief that a kingdom forged in blood can be ruled in peace. Outraged by his youngest son's outspokeness, Hidetora has him banished. When his retainer, Tango (Masayuki Yui) supports Saburo, Hidetora banishes him as well.
Unfortunately for Hidetora, Saburo's prophecies prove correct. After installing himself in First Castle with his wife, the ambitious Lady Kaede (Mieko Harada), son Taro begins to assert himself.
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