Ran/YMMV
- Award Snub: Not nominated for Best Picture or even the expected Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, despite being the most critically acclaimed film of 1985. It was only after other film directors (notably Sidney Lumet) campaigned for Kurosawa's nomination for Best Director that he was successfully nominated. He still lost to Sidney Pollack for Out of Africa.
- Complete Monster: Lady Kaede. Her Freudian Excuse doesn't even come close to justifying the brutal murder of Sue and destruction brought upon everyone.
- Hidetora in his Backstory - and he gets some Laser-Guided Karma.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: Toru Takemitsu's Western style music score.
- Despair Event Horizon: Hidetora hits this - then goes crazy.
- Narm Charm: Not "charm", per se, but the while the quite-obviously-fake blood would kill the mood in most films, it does not in this one.
- The extremely dramatic Noh-influenced performances and make-up also work way better than one might expect.
- Magnificent Bitch: Lady Kaede.
- Purity Sue: Sue, appropriately enough.
- Also a case of Tropes Are Not Bad. She serves mostly as a MacGuffin.
- Tear Jerker
- The Woobie: Tsurumaru, Lady Sué.