Before Watching Kurosawa's Ran

I just like this Polish poster. It depicts Hidetora (the old warlord in Ran & Kurosawa's revision of King Lear) so well!

Here is a link to a 2000 review of Kurosawa's film. This site also includes some stills from the film, but they may be difficult to load.

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue09/reviews/ran/text.htm

Here is another 2000 review of Ran; this one is from Salon:

http://archive.salon.com/ent/col/srag/2000/09/21/kurosawa/index.html

Ran itself came out in 1985. Here is Roger Ebert's review from that time:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19851225/REVIEWS/51...

Also, here is the NY Times review from 1985:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE5D7153BF933A15751C1A96394...

Here is the British Film Institutes's site on Kurosawa:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/kurosawa/

PBS also did a documentary on Kurosawa and his films:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/kurosawa/kurosawa.html

For more information about King Lear (the play that Kurosawa is reworking), first go to this summary with explanation:

http://www.pathguy.com/kinglear.htm

Here are various eighteenth & nineteenth Western artists' depictions of scenes from King Lear:

http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/LearPaintings.html

These sites link to recent performances of King Lear. The first is in Chicago and stars Stacy Keach:

http://www.goodmantheatre.org/season/Production.aspx?tess=906

Ian McKellen is now performing King Lear:
http://www.mckellen.com/stage/lear07/index.htm

Enjoy!