On the Big Screen: Ran (15)

ON THE BIG SCREEN In partnership with Bracknell Film Society, a series of classic film made for and seen originally on the big screen.

Dir Akira Kurosawa, Jap, 1985, 160 mins, Japanese with subtitles
Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu

After years of consolidating his empire an ageing warlord abdicates and hands over power to his three sons. Kurosawa’s final epic masterpiece deploys huge armies in vast landscapes and displays a pre-digital mastery that we can only gasp at today. Few other directors had Kurosawa’s ability to convey the intimate as well as the epic, to handle stillness as well as violence.

A Lear for our age and all time TIME OUT