cicadas, year two, part two: RAN

As my profile says, I “was turned on to Japanese martial history as a boy from the works of Stephen Turnbull and Kurosawa Akira.”  The Kurosawa movie RAN pretty much cemented the direction of my interests from the moment I saw its opening shots of boar hunting…

Why this should be, I don’t know.  It is interesting to note in passing, however, that my father, a painter, specializes in American midwestern landscapes with billowing cloud formations.  If he were the son of a feudal lord instead of the son of a train engineer, he might have painted the scene above.

Anyhow, RAN either founded or confirmed many of my sensibilities, one of which is the oppressive nature of the cicada call.  Although bird song and babbling brooks provide relief from the heat of summer, cicadas are, to me, an incessant reminder of the inescapable hot winds and pummelling sunlight.  This prejudice might have something to do with the scene from RAN in which Lord Ichimonji is banished to the hot wastelands in high summer… at 49:00 of this video…

…or if that link doesn’t work, please watch the trailer for RAN…

P.S.  Although RAN isn’t set in a specific place in Japan, having seen the mountains around Kyoto and heard stories of the wild boars that still roam there, I am convinced RAN is a “kansai” film.

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