{"id":16396,"date":"2016-05-02T14:13:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T13:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=16396"},"modified":"2016-05-13T03:39:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T02:39:45","slug":"ran-4k-blu-ray-kurosawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2016\/05\/02\/ran-4k-blu-ray-kurosawa\/","title":{"rendered":"Ran (1985)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new 4K restoration<\/a> of Akira Kurosawa’s classic reworking of Shakespeare’s King Lear<\/a>\u00a0is released on DVD and Blu-ray after showing\u00a0in UK cinemas.<\/p>\n

One of the great films of the 1980s, this samurai version of the Bard’s bleakest\u00a0tragedy still ranks as one of the great Shakespeare adaptations and one of the defining works of the famed Japanese writer-director.<\/p>\n

Kurosawa established himself as one of the great figures\u00a0of world cinema in the early 1950s,\u00a0with influential masterworks such as Rashomon<\/a> (1950), Seven Samurai<\/a> (1954), Throne of Blood<\/a> (1957), The Hidden Fortress<\/a> (1958) and Yojimbo<\/a> (1961).<\/p>\n

With its flashback narrative structure Rashomon influenced generations of filmmakers<\/a>; Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven<\/a> (1960); Throne of Blood was a startling reworking of Shakespeare’s Macbeth; The Hidden Fortress was a big influence\u00a0on the\u00a0Star Wars trilogy<\/a> (1977-83) and Yojimbo was virtually\u00a0remade as Fistful of Dollars<\/a> (1964).<\/p>\n

By the 1980s his global fame was already established, but he directed two further classics, both of them epics. The first was Kagemusha<\/a> (1980), the tale of a common thief who must impersonate a dying ruler in 16th century Japan.<\/p>\n

The second was Ran (1985), whose various translations into English can mean ‘chaos’, ‘revolt’ or ‘confused’, and this would be a worthy tribute to arguably the Bard’s bleakest play.<\/p>\n

Transferred to feudal Japan, it charts the hell unleashed when an ageing warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai) experiences a dream that causes him to divide his kingdom among his three sons (played by Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu and Daisuke Ry\u00fb) with predictably tragic consequences.<\/p>\n