As with Shakespeare, Kurosawa's film thematically explores these two aspects of human nature. Lady Kaeda and her husband are the new inheriting generation, members of an age of competition, suspicion, glory, in contrast with the older society which has come down from Hidetora and his times, with its belief in co-operation, reasonable decency, and respect for the whole as greater than the part. "Ran", like "King Lear", is thus an allegory. The older society, that of the medieval vision, with its doting king and warlord, falls into error, and is threatened by the new inheriting generation; it is partially regenerated and saved by a vision of a new order, embodied in Hidetora's rejected youngest son, which ultimately fails.