40th Anniversary / 4K Restoration
Resting after a wild boar hunt, warlord Tatsuya Nakadai (star of Kobabyashi's Hara Kiri and The Human Condition, Kurosawa's Yojimbo, High and Low, and Kagemusha among others) decides to divide his domain among his three sons. And then...a giant battle between color-coded armies is fought solely to the great Toru Takemitsu's plaintive music; an entire castle burns to the ground, as Nakadai's glassy-eyed lord staggers down its steep stone steps; ice-cold, knife-wielding seducer Mieko Harada, giving the film's second tour de force performance, stops post-coitus to squash a moth...
A decade-long dream, Kurosawa's adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear (designed from his own watercolor storyboards) proved the master's flair for epic sweep and stylistic innovation undimmed at the age of 75, the culmination of his career. Clarified Kurosawa, "I said culmination, not conclusion." Four Oscar® nominations, including Best Director, Cinematography, and Art Direction, with Emi Wada winning for her dazzling costumes.
Ran was restored in 4K from the original negative by Éclair laboratories in France, under the supervision of StudioCanal, in collaboration with Kadokawa. The color grading was approved by Masaharu Ueda, one of Ran's three cinematographers.