“Ran (乱, "chaos" or "revolt") is a 1985 film written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. It is a jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) depicting the fall of Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai), an aging Sengoku-era warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons. The story is based on legends of the daimyo Mōri Motonari, as well as on the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear.”

        This is the plot of Ran.

       “ According to Stephen Prince, Ran is "a relentless chronicle of base lust for power, betrayal of the father by his sons, and pervasive wars and murders that destroy all the main characters."[2] It is a tale about the downfall of the once-powerful Ichimonji clan after its patriarch Hidetora decides to give control of his kingdom up to his three sons: Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. Taro, the eldest, will receive the prestigious First Castle and become leader of the Ichimonji clan, while Jiro and Saburo will be given the Second and Third Castles. Hidetora will remain the titular leader and retain the title of Great Lord. Jiro and Saburo are to support Taro, and Hidetora illustrates this by using a bundle of arrows.[3] Saburo criticizes the logic of Hidetora's plan. Hidetora achieved power through treachery, he reminds his father, yet he foolishly expects his sons to be loyal to him. Hidetora mistakes these comments for a threat and when his servant Tango comes to Saburo's defense, he banishes both of them.

Following Hidetora's abdication, Taro's wife Lady Kaede begins pushing for Taro to take direct control of the Ichimonji clan, and engineers a rift between Taro and Hidetora. Lady Kaede resents Hidetora for massacring her family in a previous war and forcing her to marry Taro. Matters come to a head when Hidetora kills one of Taro's guards who was threatening his fool Kyoami. When Taro subsequently demands that Hidetora renounce his title of Great Lord, Hidetora storms out of the castle. He then travels to Jiro's castle, only to discover that Jiro is more interested in using Hidetora as a pawn in his own power play. Finally Hidetora journeys to the third castle, which had been abandoned after Saburo's forces followed their lord into exile. They take shelter in the castle, only to be ambushed by the combined forces of Taro and Jiro. In a horrific massacre that is the centerpiece of the film, Hidetora's bodyguards and concubines are slaughtered, the castle is set on fire, and Hidetora is left to commit seppuku (ritual suicide). However, much to his dismay, Hidetora's sword has been broken and he cannot commit seppuku. Instead of killing himself, Hidetora goes mad and escapes from the burning castle. As Taro and Jiro's forces storm the castle, Jiro's general Kurogane has Taro assassinated.

Hidetora is discovered wandering in the wilderness by Tango and Kyoami, who along with Saburo remain the only people still loyal to him. They take refuge in a peasant's home, only to discover that the peasant is a man named Tsurumaru, Lady Sué's brother (and Hidetora's son-in-law), whom Hidetora had ordered blinded years ago. Upon his return from battle, Jiro begins having an affair with Lady Kaede, who quickly becomes the power behind his throne. She demands that Jiro divorce his wife Lady Sué and marry her instead. When he does so, she also demands for good measure that he have Sué killed. Kurogane is given the order, but he publicly disobeys and warns Jiro not to trust his wife. Meanwhile, Hidetora's party hides out in the remains of a castle that Hidetora had destroyed in an earlier war. At one point Tango kills two men from Hidetora's bodyguard who he discovers had betrayed him. Hidetora's madness causes him to have nightmares about all the people he murdered in his quest for power. The madness finally becomes too much for him to bear; eluding his servants, he flees back into the wilderness.

With Hidetora's location a mystery, Saburo's army crosses back into the kingdom to find him. Alarmed at what he suspects is treachery, Jiro hastily mobilizes his army to stop them. The two forces meet on the field of Hachiman. Sensing a major battle, Saburo's new patron, a warlord named Fujimaki, marches to the border. Another rival warlord, Ayabe, also shows up with his own army. After arranging a truce with Jiro, Saburo rides off to find Hidetora. But Jiro orders an attack anyway, and his forces are decimated by arquebus fire from Saburo's army. In the middle of the battle, word reaches Jiro and Kurogane that Ayabe has slipped away with much of his army and is marching on the First Castle. Jiro's army promptly disintegrates and flees back to the castle, where Kurogane beheads Lady Kaede after she admits that she herself had planned for events to transpire this way all along. Jiro, Kurogane, and Jiro's men all die in the battle that follows. Lady Sué is also finally murdered by one of Jiro's men.

In the end, Saburo finally discovers Hidetora, hiding in a cave. The two are reunited and Hidetora comes to his senses. However, Saburo is promptly killed by an assassin that Jiro had sent out earlier. Overcome with grief, Hidetora finally dies, marking the end of the Ichimonji clan. The film ends with a shot of Tsurumaru, blind and alone on top of the ruined castle, the only survivor of the film's events.”

To tell the truth, when I first saw the movie, I was thinking that why the king have a meeting on the grass. The movie seems a little old in costumes and the settings .But when you finishi the whole movie ,you will feel that it is a move thant shot in 1985.It is amazing.

      The director really depicited vividly the figures, one of which is really striking. Lady Kaede is a womam  who push this tragedy for her hostility caused by Hidetora killing her family.

      There is a part of the movie to draw the lady’s cruel and naïve ,an extremely contradictory personality.

        When a fly flies to the lady, she is pretending to cry to induce the king to kill his original wife. She captures the fly and kill it like a child.

      When I see this part, an idea came to me that how unbelievable the movie was shot in the 80s.