Ran

Ran (Japanese: 乱; lit. 'chaos or tumult') is a 1985 epic historical action drama film directed, co-written, and edited by Akira Kurosawa. The plot derives from William Shakespeare's King Lear and includes segments based on legends of the daimyō Mōri Motonari. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-period warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons.

Like most of Kurosawa's work in the 1970s and 80s, Ran is an international production, in this case a Japanese-French venture produced by Herald Ace, Nippon Herald Films, and Greenwich Film Productions. Production planning went through a long period of preparation. Kurosawa conceived the idea of Ran in the mid-1970s, when he read about Motonari, who was famous for having three highly loyal sons. Kurosawa devised a plot in which the sons become antagonists of their father. Although the film became heavily inspired by Shakespeare's play King Lear, Kurosawa began using it only after he had started preparations for Ran. Following these preparations, Kurosawa filmed Dersu Uzala in 1975, followed by Kagemusha in the early 1980s, before securing financial backing to film Ran.