The film is a Japanese-French venture produced by Herald Ace, Nippon Herald Films and Greenwich Film Productions. Production planning went through a long period of preparation. Kurosawa conceived the idea of "Ran" in the mid-1970s, when he read about Motonari, who was famous for having three highly loyal sons. Kurosawa devised a plot in which the sons become antagonists of their father. Although the film became heavily inspired by Shakespeare's play "King Lear", Kurosawa began using it only after he had started pre-planning for "Ran". Following this pre-planning, Kurosawa filmed "Dersu Uzala" in 1975 followed by "Kagemusha" in the early 1980s before securing financial backing to film "Ran".