Ran

Kurosawa's recasting of Shakespeare's Macbeth as a samurai warlord in Throne of Blood was thoroughly succesful. Ran is an equally successful interpretation of King Lear and retains many of the main themes of the play as it transforms the daughters into sons and transposes, uniting two characters into the Fool. and bringing the action to sixteenth-century Japan. The shift and sway of a nation divided is vast, the chaos ("Ran") is terrifying, the battle scenes visually stunning -- ghastly and haunting -- and the outcome even bleaker than Shakespeare's. The only note of optimism resides in the nobility of the film itself: a huge, tormented canvas from which the powerful performances by Nakadai, Terao, and Harada loom. All around the pettiness and treachery of the people blooms the majesty of the world itself, relentlessly uncaring of the fate of the characters.

Note:
The family crest of Ichimonji is the sun and moon. The kanji (Chinese character) of Kurosawa's first name "Akira" is the combined characters of sun and moon. Kurosawa said in an interview that, "Hidetora is me."

Title: Ran (Chaos)
Original Title in Japanese: Ran
Running Time: 162 min
Year: 1985
Company: Herald Ace - Greenwich Film
Writer(s): Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Masato Ide
Director(s) of Photography: Takao Saito, Shouji Ueda (support: Asakazu Nakai)
Production Designer(s): Yoshiro Muraki, Shinobu Muraki Music: Tetsu Takemitsu

Cast:
Tatsuya Nakadai (Hidetora Ichimonji), Akira Terao (Takatora Ichimonji), Jinpachi Nezu (Masatora Ichimonji), Daisuke Ryu (Naotora Ichimonji), Peater (Kyoami)

Ran is also the red communist robot from Bob and George.

Made by Kalinka Cossack, he is made up of weak Russian parts and will die from just about anything. People have been known to hug him and cause him to die. He is however invulnerable to Nuclear attacks.

His weapon is the Cossack buster, an insanely powerful weapon capable of destroying just about anything. He has to survive long enough to use it, though...

Fortunantely for Ran, he is equipped with an item that resurrects him almost automatically, thus rendering him almost immortal. The dead body stays there though, and can be used. Examples of this are in 'Plague's Misadventures', a Bon and George SubComic.

Ran has appeared in just about all of the Bob and George FanComics, and some of the SubComics too. But he has yet to appear in the main comic.

Once there was a fad of eating RanCakes, which were compressed dead Rans. I have no idea when this was or how it began, I've just heard of it. It was before I started reading BnG.

Ran was created by Ran, also known as Midsith.

In Norse Mythology, Ran is the goddess of storms and the wife/sister of Aegir. She is the queen of the land of the dead at the bottom of the ocean and collects sunken ships and drowned sailors. The sailors are caught with her net and are taken to her hall where she ministers them because drowned men don't go to Valhalla or Helheim.

By Aegir, she is the mother of the nine waves (Himinglaeva, Dufa, Blodughadda, Hefring, Unn, Hronn, Bylgia, Bara, and Kolga) who dress in white robes and veils. She lives with Aegir under the ocean near the island Hlesey

Sources:
http://www.pantheon.org/
http://silvana.itgo.com/Ran.htm

Ran (?),

imp. of Run.

© Webster 1913.

Ran, n. [As. ran.]

Open robbery.

Lambarde.

© Webster 1913.

Ran, n. Naut.

Yarns coiled on a spun-yarn winch.

© Webster 1913.