In the pantheon of Akira Kurosawa’s work there are certain films of unassailable quality. Among them are The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Rashomon and RAN. Of all of Kurosawa’s classics, RAN is by far the most staged, stylized and surreal. The plot is a reasonably straightforward adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear in which an aging regent splits his kingdom between his three sons, sons who proceed to wage war upon one another for control of the whole family estate.

Kurosawa transposes the location from England to feudal Japan and takes what was a stage-bound production out into the open. From a stylistic standpoint, RAN shares more with German Expressionist films like The Cabinet of Doctor Calgary than it does with its Shakespearian source. Light, wind, clouds and rain become vital reflections of the characters’ psychological states. Buildings, costumes, makeup and locations all speak to the interior motivations of the principles. Even the acting, which takes its exaggerated delivery from from the Noh Theater tradition, shares much with the exaggerated silent method used in the Expressionist period.

Made in 1985 with a budget of $12 million, RAN was the most expensive Japanese movie ever produced to that point. Kurosawa had been making movies of increasingly epic scope. RAN was the culmination of those efforts. It features hundreds of extras, massive, John Ford-esque vistas and a plot of operatic proportions. But it’s the small moments that stand out the most. Tatsuya Nakadai delivers a gripping performance as the aging king who slips into insanity. He starts out as a wise patriarch but quickly devolves into a sunken eyed, wild haired mad man roaming about windy cliffs cursing incomprehensible fate and searching blindly for redemption. In a balancing performance, Mieko Harada as Lady Kaede is a humble, obedient wife who transforms herself into a power-mad and ruthless manipulator whose self serving machinations lead to her ultimate and unforgettable demise.

In Japanese RAN means ‘chaos’ and at its core, that’s exactly what the film is about. We see how the king’s decision sets in motion a series of events that turn every life in the film upside down. The action in RAN seens to be driven by base urges more than reasoned, intelligent choices. As in much of life, events trundle forward along a path that we as individuals have little or no ability to change. RAN is Kurosawa’s attempt to find some kind of meaning and purpose against a backdrop of chaos and uncertainty. It’s a castigation of determinism and an effective expression of an almost existentialist worldview.

Disc Presentation: Image is Everything
When people got wind that Criterion was planning a release of RAN, anticipation ran high. RAN had seen several previous releases on DVD, all of them substandard in some way. First there was the Fox Lorber edition with a cropped aspect ratio, subtitles burned onto the image itself and the whole thing pushed up to the top of the frame in a very unnatural way. Then there was the so-called Maserworks edition that suffered from inaccurate colors, poor subtitles and an unforgivable amount of digital artifacting due to over-compression.

So, did Criterion save the day? Not exactly… The Criterion release shows excellent color fidelity. The colors are natural, accurately saturated and free from over-aggressive edge enhancement. The subtitles can be turned off and have been retranslated for this edition for better accuracy. Unfortunately, the source seems to be the same as the Masterworks Edition and shows tons of jpeg compression in what should be solid areas of color like skies and green fields. Compression artifacts are impossible to ignore on my 46 inch DLP set. Viewing the disc on a smaller screen or a softer plasma setup may produce better results. DLP tends to exacerbate image problems rather than smooth them over but even in light of that fact, Criterion really dropped the ball with this disc. The problem seems to be their attempt to fit too much data onto a single disc. RAN is a long film at two hours and 40 minutes, and probably should have been placed on two discs in order to reduce the overly aggressive compression required to fit it on a single disc. The bottom line is that Criterion’s RAN looks better than any of the other releases but still suffers from the kind of annoying flaws that we can usually trust Criterion to eliminate.

Disc Presentation: Sound of Music
Of all the releases of RAN, Criterion’s has the cleanest soundtrack. The audio, in Dolby two-channel stereo is crisp and rich. There’s no hiss, crackle or pop to be heard and the subtleties of wind, rain and whispered dialogue are all readily audible. The battle scenes are aggressive without being overly loud and there’s a pleasant depth to the mix that comes through admirably.

Extra! Extra!
RAN comes in Criterion’s standard two-disc case. Included in the case is an excellent 30-page, full color booklet with chapter stops, information on the cast and crew, three articles on Kurosawa and RAN, and details on the disc transfer. In addition to the booklet the disc includes an excellent audio commentary with film scholar Stephen Prince. In the best Criterion tradition, Prince’s track is like a Kurosawa class on a disc. Also on disc one you’ll find the theatrical trailer and a short video interview with director Sidney Lumet who discusses the influence Kurosawa had on his own work.

Disc two contains a fascinating 74-minute documentary called A.K. This footage was excerpted from a longer film about Kurosawa and focuses on the later part of his career. A.K. is composed mainly of interviews with Kurosawa himself. Next up is a 30-minute documentary on the making of RAN produced for the Toho Masterworks series. This behind the scenes piece is interesting but has the feel of a typical EPK promotional film. As if those two items weren’t enough there’s a third video program. This one is a 35-minute exploration of Kurosawa’s production sketches for the film. Kurosawa was a trained painter and these images (comparable to story boards) are a treat to view. Finally, there’s a brief interview with RAN actor Tatsuya Nakadai.

Closing Arguments
Even though I’ve been harsh on the transfer for this Criterion release, don’t shy away from adding it to your collection. There simply isn’t a better version of this film available on DVD. Unless and until there is, the Criterion is a worthy purchase. Though over-compressed, the transfer is watchable, especially on non-DLP equipment and the broad slate of extras is well worth the price of admission.