WATCH PARTY: Ran (1985) dir. Akira Kurosawa @ Mary Pretlow Library
Details
Late Kurosawa, being his samurai adaptation of King Lear. We'll be in the large room, Meeting Room 2, to the right of the entrance.
RUNTIME: 162 minutes
RATED: R - severe violence & gore
SYNOPSIS: With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.
BLURBS:
"The samurai costumes, the makeup inspired by Noh drama, give the story a freshness that removes it from all our earlier associations. Ran is a great, glorious achievement." - Roger Ebert
"In its opening scenes, it seemed to have an intimate feel, but it gradually expands to achieve an epic scale with a level of spectacle that continues to amaze to this day." - Sergio Burstein, Los Angeles Times
"One can never be short of things to look at while Kurasawa's Ran is in the world." - Tara Brady, The Irish Times