Kurosawa Ran Battle

Battle scene starting from when one of the sons that betrays the feudal lord is shot. Criterion DVD is on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Ran-Criterion-Collection-Tatsuya-Nakadai/dp/B000BB14YY/...

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Sports

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• Kurosawa

[xaxie1]

This is an action scene Mr Michael Bay :D

[youtubister]

How could you have cut the scene short, jfawcette?

[xaxie1]

@donnk

Now you deserve top comment :)

[donnk]

@xaxie1

Michael Bay sucks anyway...his films are the epitome of shallow, cheap entertainment

[melbourneopera]

Well, it is interesting that the PC game shogun's opening video is cut from this film

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

Though Monsieur Akira Kurosawa had been a mere filmmaker (as yet the greatest of them ever living, but still only a movie director) I do account his works equal to that of a poet (like Homer, Shakespeare or Lucan)! His way of transferring the plays of Shakespeare to Japan is brilliant! He does not translate the text but the very essence of King Lear! Even more: King Lear is somewhat misbegotten as the tragedy seems very foolish and wilfully inflicted, since Cordelia speaks her mind very clearly.

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

So having Lear banishing and cursing her for that hardly seems creditable; a thing which very often happens in the tragedies of Shakespeare: Othello only kills Desdemona because of a handkerchief, Hamlet causes much havoc by ever prolonging his just revenge and Macbeth is not forced at all to wander the bloody way of ambition; only the Roman tragedies like Julius Caesar or Coriolanus have a true tragic core, while Titus Andronicus is so much beyond it that only the poetical language can save it.

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

But here in Japan with its strict code of behaviour, where every expression of emotions and feelings is restricted by a narrow hierarchical politeness the fatal misunderstanding between Lord Hidetora and his youngest son Saburo is creditable; amazing is the way how Kurosawa arranges the story of King Lear anew! Many words and actions have been assigned to different characters: For example the fool utters the words when father and son have died, the blinded Gloucester spoke without cause:

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

“I have heard more since. As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” – in King Lear they are just another of the many very smart saying Monsieur Shakespeare adds to his plays; but in Ran they comment the tragedy and even more: The Japanese Earl of Kent (Tango) does rebuke them by defending the Gods from the slander of the fools; as the Gods are helpless against the human desire for suffering and evil! So all is more sad, sober and hopeless.

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

The addition of the Japanese form of Buddhism, called Zen and its negative perception of life and human nature does shape the play in a very different kind of way; though the Bastard Edmund utters that not the stars govern the human destiny but the desires; but while King Lear is a just, goodly liege and father, only mislead and rash in temper Lord Hidetora is troubled by the mischief and carnage he did in the past; and the kind Lady Sue does make his torment worse, since she cannot hate him.

[FireEyedMaidOfWar]

So Shakespeare did only attempt to write a tragedy when he wrote King Lear as his characters are too high-minded and noble, to lively and indifferent towards life than real human beings tend to be (the figures of Shakespeare are more like humanity should be than it actually is) and Kurosawa turned it into a real tragedy, which could even content with the ones from ancient Greece; plus: The way the characters are bound here to strict hierarchical courtesy is much missed in modern productions.