Kurosawa's film is King Lear with the daughters changed to sons, an ageing warlord dividing his territory among three heirs and being destroyed by the two who flatter him. The change is not cosmetic. Making them sons puts armies rather than households in play, so the collapse is military and the film can stage it at scale. Kurosawa also added Lady Kaede, who has no counterpart in the play and who drives much of the second half, and folded in the Japanese legend of Mori Motonari's three arrows.