RAN is indeed very theatrical. So much so, that i have heard it as a criticism many times. I think it was consciously shot as such. A lot of the feeling is provided by the performance of tatsuya nakadai (the protagonist) himself, although most certainly that's how AK wanted him to act it out. Yet other actors in teh film are less theatrical with the exception of the "fool" and the blind tsurumaru. My favorite performance though is of the vengeful kaede - especially in the scene that she blackmails jiro by making him admit at knifepoint that he killed his brother. Very powerful performance.

The battle action however at the end of the film is amazing, and as i said before, it must have given great inspiration for the development of STW. The tide of the battle is dynamic, almost wave like and i think STW makes an absolutely great job at reproducing that. Those scenes were shot in Kyushu, unlike the rest of the film that was shot in the slopes and the vicinity of Mount Fuji (including the dramatic landscapes of teh opening). There is in the spot now a small museum that is dedicated to the film and to AK himself.