Writing for the "San Francisco Chronicle", Bob Graham stated: "In "Ran", the horrors of life are transformed by art into beauty. It is finally so moving that the only appropriate response is silence." Gene Siskel writing for the "Chicago Tribune" wrote: "The physical scale of "Ran" is overwhelming. It's almost as if Kurosawa is saying to all the cassette buyers of America, in a play on Clint Eastwood's phrase, 'Go ahead, ruin your night'—wait to see my film on a small screen and cheat yourself out of what a movie can be." Vincent Canby writing for "The New York Times" stated: "Though big in physical scope and of a beauty that suggests a kind of drunken, barbaric lyricism, "Ran" has the terrible logic and clarity of a morality tale seen in tight close-up, of a myth that, while being utterly specific and particular in its time and place, remains ageless, infinitely adaptable."