Akira Kurosawa Week concludes at Trailers from Hell with director Brian Trenchard-Smith introducing “Ran,” Kurosawa’s existential epic of chaos with Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai in the King Lear-esque lead role.
Like Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa found it difficult to find
backing for projects in his later years. Producer Serge Silberman came to the
rescue with a Japanese-French coproduction package to enable the director to
make this dark spectacle based primarily on the exploits of an actual 16th
century warlord, although there are undeniable similarities to King Lear.
Kurosawa spent ten years storyboarding the film as paintings, accounting for
the stunning visuals throughout.
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