Akira Kurosawa's 'Ran' is the Best King Lear Adaptation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
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One of my most special, wonderful memories was watching this film with my late mother and my late younger brother. Our mother would always tells us what we HAD TO WATCH. Well, she had great taste. Thanks as always, Ben.
She certainly had magnificent taste! How wonderful you all got to enjoy such superb films together :) I'd love to know what some of her other must-watch films were!
@@BenjaminMcEvoy Thanks, Ben. Another of her favorites was Lagaan, set in India in 1893. Another was Kolya. And a few of the first she had us watch were Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring. Thank you for indulging my nostalgia. OH HUGE FYI - I'm ordering A Secret Vice for me and one for my daughter. She loved your Lord of the Rings lecture. She's 16 and loves reading just as much as her grandmother and mother. Thanks for everything, Ben. Your lectures are amazing, and the Book Club is just superior.
Thanks for this recommendation, Ben! HCLBC member here! I borrowed this from the library and finally saw it this week. What a treat. I felt the King’s loss of dignity and the sad betrayal of his 2 sons. The pangs of regret as he lost the chance to reconcile with his son for the last time really broke my heart.
I am half Japanese myself and though Shakespeare’s poetry isn’t linguistically present in the movie, as you said, I also think that Kurosawa truly captures the essence and spirit of King Lear’s preoccupations of the human condition: regret, irreversible mistakes, aging, and human dignity.
One of my favourite movies! It was a very tough shoot - Kurosawa's wife of 39yrs died during filming, and Kurosawa himself was almost blind by that point. Interesting to think that the fact that the film was non-English language may have made it easier for Kurosawa to capture the essence of the play. Do you think that the fact that Shakespeare's language is so archaic actually makes it harder for English language directors to capture the true essence of his plays?
It Depends on actors too. What it would've been like watching Shakespeare act his characters
Yes, the legend goes he took one day off from shooting to mourn her. I wonder at how the grief would have impacted the rest of the shoot, along with, as you mention, his blindness. A shame for a director whose visual prowess was so acute. I personally think the difficulty of Shakespeare is more due to its dense poeticism rather than its archaic language. Fitting our modern method acting to a soliloquy composed in iambic pentameter, classical allusions, and strikingly metaphorical language is surely no easy feat even for the Gielguds, McKellens, and Oliviers of the acting world!
HCLBC member here! I really loved watching Ran, and it absolutely captures the tragedy of King Lear, as Ben explains, along with adding the vision of Kurosawa. Thanks so much to Ben for recommending this and and for his review here!
That being said, the film does not really help me to understand Edgar, so I will keep looking for other film adaptations. I see a comment Reddit, which says:
"let's look at the title of the Quarto version of King Lear (spelling modernized, taken from here):
M. William Shakespeare: His True Chronicle History of the life and death of King Lear and his three Daughters. With the unfortunate life of Edgar, son and heir to the Earle of Gloucester, and his sullen and assumed humor of Ton of Bedlam
As we can see, in Shakespeare's time Edgar was a pretty important role, even though nowadays it's gotten overshadowed by other characters like Edmund."
I do very much agree that I need to explore and understand more the transformation of Edgar!
Loved this movie! I watched it for a class in my undergrad on adaptations of Shakespeare and I remember everyone in the class being absolutely enthralled with this movie
Wow. You had such an awesome class. I'm so happy to hear that everyone was enthralled. To be honest, I would be confident to put this on for anyone, even those who don't watch foreign cinema or Shakespeare, and I would expect an enthralled reaction :)
I completely agree. It is a truly great film. It's production values are absolutely stunning. Along with Chimes at Midnight, (Falstaff), its my favorite Shakespeare film adaptation. I had the incredible luck to have seen it when originally released in the best film theater in New York at the time. It's Kurosawa's greatest color film. The storyboards created by Kurosawa, compiled with the script, are also available in a book well worth having.
Totally agree! It’s fantastic and heartbreaking.
Idk how this clip popped up but I clicked on it and the way you passionately talk about Shakespeare made me immediately want to check out Shakespeare.. And watch Ran.
Thank you so much, my friend. I would love to know what you make of Ran! Such a masterpiece :)
@@BenjaminMcEvoy I will definitely let you know what I make of Ran since I bought the movie recently after reading and hearing so much about it. And probably dig in Shakespeare cause you made me very interested in his works.. You have the gift of telling cause I was glued to the screen listening to your passion of Shakespeare and Ran being the best adaptation of king Lear
7:50 superbly put!
I always see this film as three part process of entropy, because the Kanji “Ran” literally means “chaos” or symbolically “entropy” in Japanese and Chinese..
The first part is the breaking down of order. How due to old age (over time in entropy), the king had to give up the sole unifying power that’s holding his universe together, and scattering it to his non-compliant lesser sons..
The second part shows how the chaotic (human)nature breaks/burns down his ordered “KINGdom” into a disintegrated “RANdom”.. order into chaos
Finally when all the sources of chaotic energy (characters’ life force) had died out, and the flame of war burns out, his kingdom is finally being dissipated into nothingness..
cheers to Kurosawa 🎉
I would rather watch RAN nonstop for 24 hours than any of these silly bloated CGI spectaculars vomited forth by modern Hollywood.
Ha! I'm with you there!
Love your videos. Hoping you review Don Quixote at some point. I saw Ran back in the 80s when it was released in the US. In Subsequent years, I bought a copy. It is a profound production that has stood the test of time as a Masterpiece. The death of Lady Sue haunts me to this day. I have gotten away from Shakespeare over the years and recently tried to return only to remember most of his plays end with bodies everywhere at the end. If I had to pick my favorite movie adaption in English, it would be Henry V by Kenneth Branagh. Your thought?
Loved this! When I first saw Ran, I thought you can cut out any single frame and you get a masterpiece. There aren't many movies like that.
What do you think about "Throne of Blood," another Kurosawa's adaptation of a Shakespeare, "Macbeth"?
Have seen it! It is a miracle
Miracle is definitely the perfect way to describe it, Peter!
one of if not the most perfect films ever made
Completely agree with you :)
I think that one of the big advantages that the Japanese setting has in adapting Shakespeare are the aspects of Noh theater which are incorporated into the film. The stylized makeup and exaggerated movements and expressions of the characters work as an amazing substitute for the grandiose language of the original to the same effect. Shakespeare works in minimalist theater because the language does so much of the heavy lifting. In Ran, the visual aspects of the film serve much the same purpose, which is why it "translates" so well.
Yes, I agree!
Kurosawa had a number of great Shakespeare-Adaptations -- among them Throne of Blood and The Bad Sleep Well. However, what he achieved in RAN is really quite extraordinary. I keep coming back to it. Tatsuya Nakadai's portrayal of the Lear-analogue is truly one for the ages -- rivalled only by his own portrayal in "Harakiri".
RAN's images are burned into my memory. The fool's words of wisdom "Man is born crying. When he runs out of tears, he dies." has stuck in my mind since I've heard them.
The ending leaves me emotionally drained. It's a genuinely harrowing, apocalyptic answer to Kent's query: "Is this the promised end?"
We are all the blind man on the precipice, sounding (or listening to) the flutes of chaos.
Have you seen the 2018 National Theatre Live version with Ian McKellen? It was just added to the NT at home streaming service in September and I loved it! Definitely going to watch Ran now
There's is this sequence of war breaking out where only music can be heard, not anything else, no shouts, nothing of the chaos. And that I think encapsulates the entire essence of it. No words could quite depict the horror of what happens with Hidetora (Lear). It also serves as a commentary on the idea that 'words' can be worthless.
I agree completely. Ran is a great movie and the best production of Lear. I would also argue that Throne of Blood is a superb movie and the best production of Macbeth. Kurosawa understood and translated the spirit of Shakespeare into film better than any of the English language versions.
I saw Ran thanks to a friend (drama teacher),who loved the movie. Yes, it was a fine film.
"Ran" and "Kagemusha" are both marvelous films. Having said that, I still think that "Throne of Blood" is Kurosawa's best movie, and it is my favourite work of his.
'Throne of Blood' is an absolute masterpiece! :)
Hello! I want to start off by saying that I'm very thankful to you for all the effort you put in this channel and I have a suggestion/request near the end of this comment. Also, thanks for getting me started on Shakespeare. I had Shakespeare in school but English being a second language (I'm Indian) and the way things are taught in school I just couldn't get into much beyond what was assigned to us. After coming across you channel I was persuaded to give Shakespeare another chance and decided to start with hamlet (as it's the most famous one) and decided to watch a the film first - the Kenneth Branagh one. It was AMAZING! Loved it! Saw a few other adaptation and that brings me to the suggestion/request - There's an *Indian movie by the name of Haider* and it came out in 2014. It's an adaptation of Hamlet. Idk how much you have been exposed to Indian cinema but I would like to suggest that you watch it. I think you'd like it. Now, it's 2 hr 40 min long and there's gonna be songs in between (it's not a musical but Indian movies have this thing) and you might need a bit of background knowledge about Kashmir and the Indo-Pak conflict but not much so it's manageable. I can promise that if nothing else it's gonna be a great experience. You could watch with friends etc. *It's available on Netflix with subtitles.*
You can watch the *trailer* here : th-cam.com/video/ZmN_VSo8DOo/w-d-xo.html
If you do end up watching it I'd love to hear your thoughts. And now I'm off to watch Ran. Thanks. 😁
P.S - Anyone else reading this comment, someone who loves movies and Shakespeare, I wouldn't pass up on Haider 😌
I think what's also important about that scene of the castle burning is its Japanese connotation to it. In Japanese history committing seppuku was how samurai and later on nobility kept their honor just before being captured by their enemies. So the fact that he's desperately looking for a weapon and he keeps finding empty sheaths is symbolic of him being stripped of the very last thing that made him a Lord, his honor. After that I think that's when he breaks because he had been so humiliated and ashamed that he can't bare to be mentally present anymore.
I'd love to hear reviews of
1944 Henry V - Olivier
1948 Hamlet - Olivier
1948 MacBeth - Welles
1950 Othello - Welles
1953 Julius Ceasar - Maniwicz
1956 Richard III - Olivier
1957 Throne of Blood - Kurosawa
1966 Chimes of Midnight - Welles
1967 Romero and Juliet - Zefferilli
1989 Henry V- Branagh
What about Peter Brook's 1971adaptation with Paul Scofield as Lear?
Sublime adaptation. I'm a big fan of Peter Brook's work!
What did you think of the 2021 Coen brothers Macbeth adaptation? "The Tragedy of Macbeth" with Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand playing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth respectively.
Have you seen the Russian film adaptations of King Lear and Hamlet by Grigori Kozintsev? Sorta surprised it;s not come up in the comments but they're oft considered among the best Shakespearean adaptions- stylized with epic flair, stunning cinematography and each a score by Shostakovich. An omission that might support your thesis about translation aiding Shakespeare adaptation.
I watched this movie four years ago. And I was not even sure about whether I had watched it before watching your video. I have forgot everything about this movie😂.
The best Shakespeare theatrical adaptation no doubt. Currently on the BFI player to stream!
Glad you agree, James! And great to know it's on BFI :) And Amazon Prime has the Ultra HD version!
I got an Essay about Ran for my Shakespeare class due in like 8 hours and I haven't started. This video saved my ass
Glad it helped :) I would love to hear the feedback on your essay!
Kurosawa films and The Doller Series are massive influences on my own writing, always being on the tv in the background or such. They open so much understanding how humanity. Ran is itself a masterpiece as well as a retelling of Shakespeare, and in my opinion, proves the universality of Shakespeare's work.
The issue with adapting Shakespeare, is that the best version of true-to-style Shakespeare work is Shakespeare's, and anything that is done is measured against it. to do it well you need to change. Hamlet is done better in The Lion King, or Sons of Anarchy, than any film or play I have seen of it - still not as good as the theatre of the mind, however.
That's such a nice idea, I love that. Hamlet done better in The Lion King! Who could argue? This film is, by the way, one of the few that never fails to make me cry (we all know the scene). Perhaps that is indeed part of the reason Kurosawa hit such a home run with 'Ran'. How thoroughly he made the story his own. Thanks for the amazing comment :)
I know it has been sometime since you have written this comment but, what are "The Doller Seies" exactly? Googling it is not giving me a likely result and I am curious.
@@aphexripper the dollars trilogy or otherwise known as the Man with no Name trilogy is a set of spaghetti western movies directed by Sergio Leone & with Clint Eastwood as the protagonist in all of three of them. The movies included Fist Full of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More & the Good the Bad and the Ugly
They’re all great films with the GBU being the most popular & in my opinion the best. The music composed by Ennio Morricone is some of the best & most iconic music in all of film
Loved this, thank you! Haven’t seen the film, but will definitely track it down now. I’d definitely welcome more videos on movie adaptations of Shakespeare plays, and would love to know if you’ve a particular recommendation for the best Hamlet? Thought Kenneth Branagh was a little, well, histrionic in his version, but maybe I’m misunderstanding!
I like your take that AK made grander scales of these Shakespeare renditions as many other versions that I've seen are duds, which is why I haven't been a fan of the majority of Shakespeare based films
Would you say Throne of Blood is the best Macbeth adaptation?
I would have to watch it again to give you my opinion on that as it's been many years. I've planned a little screening of the 2015 film directed by Justin Kurzel and starring Michael Fassbender, which I'm quite excited about. I feel, on the whole, it's easier (though not easy) to do a good job with Macbeth than King Lear :)
Father it is thy business i go about
I've not read king lear and neither watched ran. Now which one should i try first?
👏👏👏
Just as hard as the bard.
Just found your channel and would love to join the proust project if i'm not too late? if not, would you recommend not reading any other material during the project? :)
You're not too late at all :) It's completely self-paced and designed to be a long-term deep reading project. We have videos covering the first ten pages of In Search of Lost Time and the discussion is always open. We'll have another Proust video going up in the Book Club this month. You are warmly welcome to join! As for reading other material, I highly encourage reading other books around Proust. Taking Proust super slow means you still have room to enjoy other great books (like Don Quixote or Anna Karenina, to give two of my favourites).
Sounds just right for me. On my way to get a copy of Swans Way now !
@@Mickyjjj28 That's amazing! And welcome to the club :) I'm excited to hear any thoughts you have across your Proust reading adventure!