The Japanese film-maker’s adaptation of King Lear is still visually and dramatically breathtaking
This 1985 film was the last proper epic from Japanese maestro Akira Kurosawa, and it’s a magisterial achievement. An adaptation of King Lear, rereleased in a splendid 4K restoration, it tells the story of Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), an elderly warlord with a history of ruthless slaughter, who entrusts his domain to three sons, rather than daughters, their individual battle regalia – red, yellow and blue – giving the film a striking colour coordination. The increasingly livid, ghostly Noh-style makeup worn by Nakadai highlights the theatricality, as does a somewhat Brechtian performance from Peter (just Peter) as an androgynous fool.
Kurosawa’s deployment of huge armies in vast landscapes displays a pre-digital mastery that we can only gasp at today, and the castle siege sequence – arrows flying, blood flowing, stage crimson – is all the more magnificent for the...
This 1985 film was the last proper epic from Japanese maestro Akira Kurosawa, and it’s a magisterial achievement. An adaptation of King Lear, rereleased in a splendid 4K restoration, it tells the story of Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), an elderly warlord with a history of ruthless slaughter, who entrusts his domain to three sons, rather than daughters, their individual battle regalia – red, yellow and blue – giving the film a striking colour coordination. The increasingly livid, ghostly Noh-style makeup worn by Nakadai highlights the theatricality, as does a somewhat Brechtian performance from Peter (just Peter) as an androgynous fool.
Kurosawa’s deployment of huge armies in vast landscapes displays a pre-digital mastery that we can only gasp at today, and the castle siege sequence – arrows flying, blood flowing, stage crimson – is all the more magnificent for the...
- 4/3/2016
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
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