Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's 'King Lear' as a sweeping historical epic set in feudal Japan, where an aging warlord divides his kingdom among his three sons, triggering a catastrophic war of betrayal and vengeance. Made when Kurosawa was in his seventies and nearly blind, the film is a staggering visual achievement, its battle sequences choreographed with painterly, almost operatic scale and color symbolism. Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made and among the finest Shakespeare adaptations in any medium, it stands as a late-career masterpiece.