Ran 4K Restoration film review ★★★★★

From the shrill flute strains with which the film begins to the stark silence of the final shot Kurosawa’s Ran returns to cinemas after thirty years in a stunning 4K resolution. It’s King Lear transplanted to Japan’s 16th Century Civil War, and the restoration a tie-in with Shakespeare’s 400th birthday.

The new culture and setting bring to the Bard the best of Kurosawa’s cinema; powerful performances, arresting landscapes, deep psychological study slow build of tension, and a striking score. The grain of the film stock gives a refreshing texture to this tragedy in which greed and vengeance tear a family and their country apart.

Ran was made in the twilight of Kurosawa’s career, and the skill with which he explores his themes is masterful. Naturally there are battles – epic clashes of men and horses – but only in a few other films like Apocalypse Now or Come and See has war been shown to be this senseless and chaotic. The film’s final judgment of humanity and the gods is a stern one, the entire experience coming together in the end as a cry for peace in the wasteland of the soul.

It’s an experience richly rewarded by this restoration. This is Ran the way you remember it. And if you haven’t seen the film before, this is the best way to start.

Alejandro Stepenberg