Introduction: Ran, directed by the most famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, was released on 1st June 1985. The cast of protagonists included Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû, Mieko Harada and Yoshiko Miyazaki. In 1980s, Japan had ended its high-speed economic miracle and endured a mild economic slump. Although Kurosawa was already 73 years old, he worked on the script of Ran for a decade with Hideo Oguni and Masato Ide, successfully created an adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear with Japanese elements. The severe economy had put Ran in a dilemma: difficulty on finding investors. According to Richie Donald (1998), "Eventually, Masatoshi Hara agreed to provide part of the money and Serge Silberman agreed to provide the rest." Two French had paid for Ran's …show more content…
Bringing him the honour and awards over the world, Ran won 1 Oscar (Best Costume Design) in 1986 along with another 28 wins and 21 nominations, for example, 3 nominations (Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration) in Oscar, and award-winning of Best Foreign Film Awards in BAFTA Film Award, Amanda Awards, and César Awards (IMDB, 1990). Accredited as a masterpiece, Kurosawa's Rashômon (1950) was the first movie I watched in his famous films. Due to the technology constraint, this monochrome movie was lack of expression of the colour element. Ran was the second movie I watched, which was regarded as the proficient manipulation of colour. The film had exhausted me with shock and reticence. In the analysis of Ran, this review will mainly focus on the four motifs around humanity and how Kurosawa structures them through the use of mise-en-scène, composition and colours. Firstly the plot of Ran will be introduced, then the motifs will be analyzed with figures and examples used in the film for emphasizing. The film will be concluded at the end of this