Video essay: The Colour of Akira Kurosawa’s Ran

This one popped up in my feed, a short video essay on Kurosawa’s use of colour in Ran. Worth a watch!

(YouTube link)

Hi Vili , another nice little video, I know there has been some discussion over the colours in Ran on the home video releases. I checked your guide to Blu-ray releases and you have a picture of the same edition I have with the orange cover from Studio Canal, however the latest available edition ( from 2016 maybe ? ) claims to be a 4K restoration. Amazon listing here it’s cheap and a 2 disc set allegedly so I’ve just ordered one at the same time as your wife’s book as it put me in the free post zone. Does anyone know if this version is an improvement on the orange cover edition ? I guess I’ll find out soon.

Indeed! That’s the Studio Canal release that came out a few years ago and which, for reasons now unknown to me, hasn’t found its way to my list. I now see that I’m also missing at least one Kagemusha release. I’ll need to go through and update the Blu-ray section.

Anyway, the Studio Canal release is based on the 4K restoration from a few years back with a colour palette that is very different from any of the previous home video releases. It was completed with the help of Masaharu Ueda, one of the film’s cinematographers, so one could argue that it is the closest to what was originally shown in cinemas.

Dreams is also missing from your list which is available on Blu-ray now via Criterion in the US and UK.

Thanks, Longstone! I really need to go through the Blu-ray and DVD lists.