"Do not seek happiness but seek sorrow, do not seek tranquility but seek pain, this is the world."
We, who were born in a time of peace, can only understand war through books and images. However, when the destructive blows caused by hot and cold weapons to the body bring us physical and psychological disgust, it ignores the helmsman behind all this bloody blood, which is human nature.
As the old saying goes, "heroes are born in troubled times", but the price of becoming a hero is the coronation of thousands of corpses on the premise of abandoning ethics and morality. However, in today's seemingly turbulent era, such heroes are longed for, fascinated, and even admired by the public.
We all think we are right, invincible, and deserving of more and better. So we are all giving the title of "justice" to the evil that is to come. However, when the deepest Pandora's box of human nature is quietly opened, no one in the world can be immune to it.
Japanese director Akira Kurosawa is the most prominent representative in the history of Asian cinema. His groundbreaking narrative style and depth of expression have influenced generations of filmmakers and even the overall style of contemporary cinema.
"Ran", released in 1985, is the 28th feature film and the 4th color film directed by Akira Kurosawa. The script is adapted from Shakespeare's classic "King Lear". It tells the story of a seventy-year-old overlord , Yi Wenxiuhu , who divides the position of the governor and the territory to his three sons.
According to secular rules, Xiuhu passed the position of family governor to his eldest son Taro, and the territory was divided into three parts according to the head share.
However, the seemingly logical decision, in Saburo's view, was just the wishful thinking of his father. He believes that giving up power and territory prematurely will only allow the three sons to kill each other. As a father and family governor, Xiuhu thought that Saburo would be rebellious for not supporting the decision to become a father, so he decided to sever ties with him and expel him from the territory. Saburo, who survived death but had nowhere to go, had to enter a friendly state to temporarily find a place to live.
Taro, who succeeded the new king, under the instigation of Mrs. Masashi Kaede, gradually weakened the remaining power of his father, Xiuhu. Hideto, who was once a powerful man, could not bear repeated humiliation, and decided to move to Jiro's territory in order to live in peace.
In the face of his father's sudden departure, Jiro also made a small calculation in his heart. He, who had already secretly communicated with his elder brother, launched an attack on his father's city together. Xiuhu, who was outnumbered by the crowd, lost the short knife used to cut his abdomen in a panic and was unable to kill himself.
The old man who fought to the last person could not accept the situation of the tiger falling into Pingyang, and disappeared into the wasteland for a while. At the same time, Jiro's retainers secretly shot Taro in this war, clearing the final obstacle to his lord's superior position.
Saburo, who learned of his father's encounter, led his troops to find his father, but was blocked by Jiro's troops. Jiro, who listened to the slander, insisted on taking this opportunity to clear the last obstacle, but he was helpless and was defeated in the head-to-head confrontation with Saburo's army due to his stubbornness.
However, on the way to find his father, Saburo was shot and killed by an assassin sent by Jiro. This also caused the father Xiuhu, who had just reconciled with his son, to suffer another mental blow, and died of excessive grief. On Jiro's side, after leading a tragically defeated general to return, he lost his territory and lost his life because of the serious internal friction and the attack of the surrounding forces. The Yiwen family that once dominated the heroes was destroyed, and the ruins under the setting sun were only accompanied by the sound of the sad flute.
Compared with the previous "Shadow Warrior", the overall tension and layering of the shooting of the war scenes have been better.
After checking the information, director Akira Kurosawa mobilized a total of 1,400 extras, 200 horses, and 1,400 sets of armor. The armor in the film was designed by Akira Kurosawa himself, and the horses were generously shipped from the United States to Japan for shooting.
The hundreds of sets of exquisite costumes in the film are all handmade and took nearly two years to complete. In addition, the climax scene of burning the city in the movie is not a miniature model at all, but a real-life shooting of a scene on Mount Fuji, all of which are real guns and hard work, without using any computer special effects.
First of all, this kind of ultimate pursuit of serving the Tao is hard to see in today's film market where special effects are popular. This also reflects how difficult it is for this movie to finally present such a realistic war scene by manpower dispatching a large number of actors and horses. This is probably the craftsmanship that loves movies.
Secondly, the layering of the war scenes is reflected in the director's skill. Infantry, cavalry, and spearmen are very clearly displayed to the audience from appearance to formation, scheduling and shots. The offensive and defensive relationship between the two armies, as well as the terrain strategy adopted by one side, were perfectly presented through scheduling.
Then, in terms of the identification of the troops of different camps, the father Xiuhu, the three sons, and the troops of other forces were all distinguished by very memorable colors. The yellow, red, and blue represented by the three sons are in the first scene of the film, and the three people's costumes of different colors are used to let the audience remember.
What's more worth mentioning is that the names of the three sons are also named Taro, Jiro and Saburo. Although there were cases in Japan's Warring States Period, it was not always the case. The simple and easy-to-understand name is more to lower the threshold for the audience to understand the plot, and it can also be said to be one of the very careful details.
In addition to the main story mentioned in the previous article, another story line is interspersed in the film, which makes the overall expression of the film more three-dimensional and rich.
The family of Mrs. Kaede, who later married Taro, was originally a hostile force against a literati. After being attacked by Yiwen Xiuhu, the whole family was nearly killed. Then, as the woman of the defeated side, she married into the family of the enemy.
Mrs. Feng, who had been holding back for a long time, finally waited for the moment when her husband became the head of the house. As the wife of the city lord, she "recaptured" the city in name for her family.
However, the mediocre Taro was killed by his younger brother in the crusade against his father. For Jiro, who has been coveting her, Mrs. Feng has become Jiro's side room by coercing her interests.
Then Mrs. Feng used her beauty to seduce Jiro and ordered him to kill her main room to straighten herself up. When Saburo was looking for his father, Jinyan Jiro asked his opponent to raise his sword. In the end, Yiwenjia, who once had a bloody feud, was tragically destroyed. Before dying, Mrs. Feng also bluntly said that the destruction of Yiwenjia was the result of her pursuit.
Such a woman who is controlled by men and power in a chaotic world has been able to hide her revenge all the time, and will take action when the enemies show an opportunity. Although he ended up dying in the end, it can be described as sturdy.
The last wife of Jiro's main family, the fate before marriage is exactly the same as that of Mrs. Feng. After the death of the whole family, in order to forget the hatred and believe in Buddhism, he also raised his blind brother Tsurumaru in a farmhouse outside the city.
When his husband listened to Mrs. Feng's slander and intended to harm her, he fled overnight with his maid and younger brother. In the end, because he retrieved his beloved flute for his younger brother, he was brutally killed by the pursuers after returning home.
The fate of the same starting point, but chose a completely different path. These two diametrically opposed characters have reached the same goal, one remembers hatred and waits for revenge, and the other eats fast and recites Buddha to stay out of the way. In such a chaotic world, no one can be spared, which is embarrassing.
The main characters in the film were not spared in this chaos. In the well-known story mode, most of the characters like Saburo and Mrs. Mo will survive and end in the form of "good people have good rewards". In Kurosawa's films, however, this is not the case.
The ending that no one can survive alone happens to be the core of the film's expression. In the midst of troubled times, even if you are pure and devout to your beliefs, so what, you are already in this great era and cannot get out of it.
However, when the pain comes, the cruelty of the times, and the indifference of the gods all become the "scapegoat" in the mouth of the frustrated. However, as everyone knows, every one of us, no matter how small an individual, whether you obey, resist, or stand by indifferently, is pushing this era to the path it must go through.
People build society, and people's hearts steer the lifeblood of the times. When the whole people gradually lost the ability to think independently, when the flames called wars hit, everything was just combustibles.
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