Summary
The film opens with four soldiers on horseback in the Japanese countryside during the medieval period. We see a number of wild boars wandering through the tall grass, which the soldiers chase on horseback, trying to shoot them down with bows and arrows.
At a nearby camp, the soldiers sit and eat. Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, the elderly warlord, has killed the wild boar and the soldiers all drink to his success. They discuss the hunt, and one of Ichimonji's sons asks him if they should cook the boar and eat it at the camp. "He was a very old animal. His carcass is too tough and foul," Ichimonji says, comparing the boar to himself and asking his subjects if they would eat him. The other warlords who have gone on the hunt say that they have come on the hunt to strengthen the bonds between their house. Ayabe, one of the warlords, tells Ichimonji that he would like to marry his daughter to one of Ichimonji's sons. The warlord sitting next to Ayabe has the same intentions to marry his daughter to one of Ichimonji's sons, and asks Ichimonji to make a decision between them.
Ichimonji talks about the fact that his second son, Jiro, is already married, but says nothing more on the subject. One of Ichimonji's sons calls over Kyoami, the fool, to entertain the group. Kyoami comes over and does an elaborate performance about a rabbit, much to the delight of the soldiers. In the middle of the performance, the youngest son, Saburo, makes a comment to Kyoami, which everyone decides was very rude. Ichimonji falls asleep sitting down, and everyone agrees to retire for a moment.
"It's not like Father to sleep in front of honored guests," Jiro says to Taro, the eldest son, before deciding that Ichimonji must have been embarrassed of Saburo's interjection. Saburo cuts some branches from a nearby bush and puts them in the ground next to Ichimonji to shade him from the sun, as everyone watches.
Everyone goes to the other side of a tent, and Jiro and Taro discuss the fact that their father never fell asleep like this in the past. They tell Kyoami to wake Ichimonji up, but before he can, Ichimonji runs from the other side of the tent, looking stricken. He sits down and tells the group he has had a vision that he was in a wilderness, alone. Suddenly, he begins to laugh and tells them that he could hear Taro's voice calling him back, and that he had a vision of his three children.
Saburo is very concerned about his father's condition and stands back in fear. Ichimonji sits down to make an announcement in front of his sons, and the lords, Fujimaki and Ayabe. He assembles a group around him, and makes a speech. He talks about the fact that he was born in a nearby castle during a time of near-constant battles. "When I was only 17 years old, I raised my banner over that castle, and for 50 long years I waged war," he says, saying that he now wants to see peace in the land. Abruptly, he says that he wants to cede control of his kingdom to Taro, his eldest son, and that he will henceforth be moving to the outer tower. "I will retain an escort of 30 men as my personal guard, and also retain the title and insignia of Great Lord," he says.
The subjects all bow in reverence to Ichimonji, as Jiro asks his father what shall become of him and Saburo. He tells them that they shall be in charge of the Second and Third Castles. Suddenly, Taro bows in front of his father, and insists that the duty of ruling over the kingdom is too great for him and that he is not up to the task. Saburo jokes that he thinks Taro is only saying such things to flatter their father, but Jiro echoes Taro's reverent attitude.
Ichimonji asks Kyoami to bring arrows over, which he hands over to his sons one by one, telling them to break them in two. He then gives his sons three arrows in a bundle and tells them to break the bundle in half. He tells them that they will be able to break it if they work together, as Saburo takes the bundle and breaks it over his knee. "More of your foolishness," Ichimonji says, as Saburo tries to talk back to his father, calling him senile.
"How dare you insult your father," Ichimonji says, and Saburo fires back that they live in "a world barren of any loyalty, a world without any feeling," and shames his father for remorselessly slaughtering so many people over the years. He calls his father senile and foolish for trusting his sons even though he raised them to be mercenary soldiers.
Ichimonji is shocked, and calls Saburo a traitor. Saburo insists that he is actually trying to protect his father from the betrayal of his brothers, but this only angers Ichimonji more. Saburo insists that the lesson with the three arrows was wasted, as there is no unity between the brothers. Ichimonji is angered and banishes Saburo from the kingdom, suggesting that by loving Saburo more than his brothers, he has spoiled him. Tango, one of the noblemen, speaks up on Saburo's behalf, insisting that he is being honest and sincere. Ichimonji becomes angry and grabs a sword from Kyoami, banishing Tango along with Saburo.
Left alone in a field, Tango asks Saburo what he plans to do. Saburo insists that he is worried more about his father than about himself. He tells Tango he's an idiot for speaking up, when suddenly a group of soldiers approaches. Saburo and Tango ride off, pursued by the soldiers.
In fact, their pursuers mean no harm. It is one of the noblemen, Fujimaki, who suggests that he wants to marry his daughter to Saburo, given the courageous display he made in front of his father. He invites Saburo and Tango to his house, but Tango refuses, opting to go adopt a disguise in order to serve Ichimonji.
At the Ichimonji castle, Taro's wife, Lady Kaede, receives word that Ichimonji's concubines are moving out of the castle, but blocking her retinue. She orders him to get rid of them, proclaiming that she is now the lady of the castle. Meanwhile, Ichimonji watches from above as the messenger moves the concubines to the side for Lady Kaede. "This is intolerable. My women kneeling to Taro's wife?" Ichimonji says to his advisor. Kyoami does a dance and seems to make fun of Ichimonji, suggesting that he was a fool to lose his castle.
The scene shifts to Taro and Kaede in their new home in the castle. He tells her that he gave the armor and the banner that used to hang in these chambers to the people, but she thinks that the banner ought to remain in the house. He tells Kaede that his father wants to keep all his insignia, but Kaede is insistent that if they do not keep the visual insignia of his father's reign, they will be nothing but a shadow of the previous court. She shames him for not being more assertive, and he immediately goes to reclaim the family banner.
As a fight breaks out among the subjects about the return of the banner, Kyoami makes fun of the chaos, and gets chased by one of the subjects. As soon as the subject runs after the fool, however, he gets hit by an arrow, and falls to his death. The subjects look up to see that Ichimonji was the one to shoot the arrow and kill his subject.
That night, in front of a fire, Kyoami does a comedic dance for the subjects and Ichimonji that makes fun of the power struggle in the kingdom, particularly Taro's muted authority. Suddenly, a messenger enters and announces that Taro is holding a gathering to celebrate the transfer of power. He invites Ichimonji as well as Ichimonji's assistant, and they go to visit Taro and Kaede.
Analysis
The film is visually striking from the very first minute. As the film opens, we see a group of medieval Japanese soldiers on horseback in the middle of a lush green field in the Japanese mountains. Director Kurosawa moves the camera around to show the scale of the landscape, a giant expanse that easily dwarfs the four men on horseback against the bright greenery of the surrounding mountains, which seem to go on for miles. The soldiers wear elaborate period costumes that immediately locate the viewer in medieval Japan.
It is not only the cinematography that sets the scene for the film, but also the score, composed by Toru Takemitsu. Minor melodies played on string instruments create an atmosphere of suspense and paranoia, suggesting that this is not a lighthearted romp, but a dramatic epic, a narrative full of intrigue and deception. The score expertly highlights the dramatic and emotional landscape of the film from the first moments.
Ran takes Shakespeare's play King Lear and adapts it to a setting in medieval Japan. Shakespeare's Lear tells the story of a suspicious older king who must decide to whom he will leave his kingdom among his three daughters. Ran follows the warlord Ichimonji as he makes the same decision, but between his three sons. The plot concerns the suspicions, paranoia, and competition that attends the passing down of power from one generation to the next.
While Ichimonji's elder sons, Taro and Jiro, are exceedingly reverent towards their aging father, insisting that they could never take his place, Saburo believes that their reverence is in fact just strategic flattery, aimed to win their father's favor at the end of his life. Saburo is apparently the black sheep of the family, a man who believes that his honesty will win him favor in the end, and who does not stoop to empty flattery.
It turns out that Saburo's critique of his family not only concerns the disingenuousness of his brothers, but also the legacy of his father, one that is marked by violence and war. In an impassioned speech, he tells his father that he is foolish to trust his sons, having raised them in a world full of cold feeling and violence, and it is this trust that makes him senile and foolish. Saburo expresses the fact that he does not respect the violence that constitutes the kingdom he is inheriting, but this only angers his father more.
