Akira Kurosawa's adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear is the epitome of the word epic. The scale is just massive. The war scenes feature an enormous number of soldiers, color coded by banner. The battle scenes are stylish, one featuring no sound effects, just music. The music is a fitting combination of east and west, a Mahler-esque score matched with traditional Japanese instruments. The film itself is beautiful. Kurosawa painted out every frame of the storyboard. There is so much care taken in the mise en scene. There are lots of expansive wide mountainous shots, with the small figures barely able to be made out. In epic fashion, the movie is 3 hours long. It is very long, but there is quite a bit of action. The bleak portrait of humanity is extremely chaotic as the title suggests, and yet Kurosawa has such control over the pacing of the plot. The actors, particularly Hidetora, are very expressive, accentuated by makeup. I find it hard to comment on such epic movies but just a few of my thoughts.
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