 The analogy of the development of "Ran" to Shakespeare's "King Lear" extends also to the thematic elements as they are found in the film.As with "King Lear", the central theme of the film is its thematic study of the inheritance of power intergenerationally between a single parent and his three children.John F. Danby argues by analogy that "Lear" dramatizes, among other things, the contrasting meanings of "Nature".