Ran (1985)

There are some very haunting visuals in this movie - especially a few chilling shots of Lord Hidetora wandering mad through his land, and the final shot is breathtaking - and the story is solid, if extremely dark. However, as with its Shakespearean original, I never really connected with or cared about the political aspects of the story. The center of the story is the insane father. Whenever his story faded into the background, so did my interest. It's Kurosawa, so, of course, it was good enough to keep me interested most of the way anyway, but the story never grabbed me emotionally - just a few isolated images. 3.5 stars.