March 2025

The Japanese Method for Ran

This article originally appeared in AC, July 1986. Some images are additional or alternate. Some scenes only nature can paint, and few directors understand that better than Akira Kurosawa as he waited patiently for the weather to change on the slopes of Mt. Fuji. He was making Ran, an epoch movie set in feudal Japan documenting a tragic struggle for power between an aging warlord and his three sons. The warlord, or great lord, as he is called, has spent his lifetime stitching together an empire stretching over vast plains framed by snowcapped mountains. The story begins when the great lord unexpectedly announces that he will retire with only a small entourage, and he appoints his oldest son as his successor, ordering the others to swear...more