And all this, inconsequential as it may seem, runs a course of how much I was able to take 'Ran' in stride; as an epic, as Shakespeare, as a mature taste. Its a testament to Kurosawa, in such old age, that a film spanning this great a number of settings, this difficult a time period transposition and this meticulous a betrayal and a tragedy. Yeah, that last point seems sort of labored, but making a film that takes liberties on a classic tale, enacts such important and complicated strategy and manages to come out with an ending that feels like the ending to 'King Lear' - all of that's pretty difficult to paint so vibrantly, timelessly and, well, flawlessly.

     'Ran' is one of Kurosawa's more exciting films. Its full of characters decieving each other, power being shifted and overall chaos and madness. It's a bloody war, constructed inside a family scuffle, nicely set in Feudal Japan and, without missing a beat, in the grand style of American film epics-is that intent?- and Kurosawa has succeeded.

     Finally (to address an American's point-of-view), I saw a film earlier this year called 'The Emperor and the Assassin', which I likened to "...an interesting Japanese cinematic technique employed by a Chinese filmmaker", which  should have elaborated to include American technique and, hell, universal technique. Watching 'Ran' again, I remembered the similiarity 'The Emperor and the Assassin' bore to it and the similiarity both films have to such epics as 'Lawrence of Arabia' or, say, 'Ben-Hur'. I should have perhaps ammended the idiotic remark that it was a Japanese technique - the way the epic felt and moved. Actually, in truth, all of these films move differently - and 'Ran', (I'm coming to the point, now) moves the most gracefully of any of them. This is an epic that unfolds slowly and beautifully; never too slow and never deviant or overblown. My major quarrel with epics like the others I spoke of is that they often try to represent a reality - which is often sensationalized (think of 'Braveheart' or 'Nixon' and how many articles were written, distressed, at how much of their story was, in fact made up).

     That's the joy here. An epic, made in a grand style - in fact, improved upon a grand style - and no opportunity for ficitionalization of truth. Not just because its a story, but because you're expected to mold Shakespeare into your own surroundings and your own time.

    Shakespeare and Kurosawa would have been great friends, I think. They're both born storytellers - Kurosawa in a staggering visual sense; Shakespeare, a brilliant linguist and poet. This is an entertaining film, maybe one of Kurosawa's best (I think his 'Macbeth' adaptation, 'Throne of Blood' is a better film) and well worth a trip to see for those audiences that enjoy the broad spectrum of compounding details an epic has to offer - and the rousing and mammoth pleasure it affords us.