Ran was not Akira Kurosawa's first stab at adapting Shakespeare for Japanese cinema. In 1957, he directed Throne of Blood, an adaptation of Shakespeare's grisly Macbeth. In 1960, he directed The Bad Sleep Well, which was his take on Hamlet. Ran is perhaps his most enduring and well-known Shakespeare adaptation, transposing the story of King Lear, in which three siblings vie for a father's love, onto medieval Japan.
Throne of Blood sought to take the imagery of the English Renaissance and merge it with traditional aesthetics of Noh theater. It takes the story of the Scottish lord murdering his way to power, and repositions it within the Noh visual vocabulary. In an analysis of the film for The Guardian, Derek Malcolm writes, "The film alternates a deathly stillness with crescendos of such violent action, and gains from its relationship not just to the bones of Shakespeare but to the tenets of Noh drama."
Many have contended The Bad Sleep Well is not a strict Shakespeare adaptation, but rather just shares many narrative elements with Shakespeare's Hamlet. Others, however, see Nishi, the protagonist who is seeking vengeance for his father's death, as a definite correlate for the Danish prince. While the film diverges from many of Shakespeare's ideas about social dynamics and political intrigue, it can be thought of as taking its inspiration from Hamlet.
