Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection

Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection
by Akira Kurosawa

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Akira Kubo, Isuzu Yamada, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura, Toshir? Mifune
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Brand: Image Entertainment
Producer: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa
Producer: Sojiro Motoki
Writer: Hideo Oguni
Writer: Ryuzo Kikushima
Writer: Shinobu Hashimoto
Writer: William Shakespeare
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion

Movie Reviews of Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: A personal favorite.
Summary: 5 Stars

Throne of Blood is a favorite of mine, both for Kurosawa's masterful direction and the piquant, magnum-force performance of his leading man, Toshiro Mifune. It is no doubt one of Kurosawa's outstanding artistic and dramatic achievements, with mood-inducing sets and cinematography. There is a real supernatural eeriness and dark beauty about the early scenes of Lord Washizu and Miki in the Cobweb Forest with the evil spirit. The unearthly play of light, fog and forest shadow informs you that this is a place that reflects the swirling, contrasting and conflicting elements of the human soul. As the two horsemen try to break through the labyrinth of the forest, that wonderful Kurosawa flair for conveying the powerful dynamism of purposeful motion inspires a thrill of admiration and excitement. We have all seen galloping horses in films to the point where it is mundane and hardly remarkable. But Kurosawa makes us marvel at the lethal velocity, emphasized by those thundering hooves, with the camera catching close-up the full profile of man and beast hurtling forward like a missile as the forest whizzes by in a blur. The somber music, in the traditional Japanese style with prominent drums and flutes seems to be searching, probing for a guilty secret. As you can see, there are many elements to this film that affect me profoundly. These are all just incidental things that work together to reinforce and augment the main story, and they reveal that Akira Kurosawa was an artistic master of film-making. The film is , of course, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth for its main premise, and it follows its model pretty faithfully, transferring the action from Scotland to Japan. Since the story of Macbeth is so well known, the only real surprise has to be in the nuances the actors give in this version of the story. The reason for my extreme partiality to this version of Macbeth is the portrayal of the namesake character by Toshiro Mifune. I don't believe I have ever witnessed a more energetic performance on screen. Every muscle in Mifune's face performed a battery of superhuman calisthenics before this film was over. Toshiro Mifune was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon and I think this role epitomized the essence of this archtypal presence he emanated. All the other actors , even the insidiously conniving Lady Macbeth character, pale into conventionality beside his monumental over-the-top rendition of unrestrained and uncontrollable impulsiveness. This impetuous, excitable, impulsiveness he exudes reminds me of a piece I read once on the behavior of baboons. They are exceptionally intelligent primates, but are so impulsive that any attempt to hunt in groups usually ends up in a battle amongst themselves. When a baboon becomes aware of another baboon following him, he forgets the reason for his proximity and mistakes it for aggression, thus attacking his hunting partner while the prey escapes. Mifune's character displays just such a lack of continuity in his thinking and exhibits a dreadful susceptibility to the bad influence of his scheming wife. The scenes in which Macbeth meets his final doom are an unparalleled representation of a grotesque, hyperactive, supremely instinctual creature who nevertheless owned a charisma and defiance that still made you want to root for him in some way. While I recognize and appreciate the artistic merits of Throne Of Blood, it is this extreme rendition of susceptibility to corruption through ambition, that makes it a personal cult classic. For a graphic model of a talented man ruined by inability to control his emotionally driven, impulsive nature, Toshiro Mifune is the Macbeth par excellence.

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Summary of Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection

One of the most celebrated screen adaptations of Shakespeare into film, Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood re-imagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa's longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior's savage rise to power and his ignominious fall. With Throne of Blood, Kurosawa fuses one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies with the formal elements of Japanese Noh theater to make a Macbeth that is all his own-a classic tale of ambition and duplicity set against a ghostly landscape of fog and inescapable doom.

A champion of illumination and experimental shading, Kurosawa brings his unerring eye for indelible images to Shakespeare in this 1957 adaptation of Macbeth. By changing the locale from Birnam Wood to 16th-century Japan, Kurosawa makes an oddball argument for the trans-historicity of Shakespeare's narrative; and indeed, stripped to the bare mechanics of the plot, the tale of cutthroat ambition rewarded (and thwarted) feels infinitely adaptable. What's lost in the translation, of course, is the force and beauty of the language--much of the script of Throne of Blood is maddeningly repetitive or superfluous--but striking visual images (including the surreal Cobweb Forest and some extremely artful gore) replace the sublime poetry. Toshiro Mifune is theatrically intense as Washizu, the samurai fated to betray his friend and master in exchange for the prestige of nobility; he portrays the ill-fated warrior with a passion bordering on violence, and a barely concealed conviviality. Somewhat less successful is Isuzu Yamada as Washizu's scheming wife; her poise and creepy impassivity, chilling at first, soon grows tedious. Kurosawa himself is the star of the show, though, and his masterful use of black-and-white contrast-- not to mention his steady, dramatic hand with a battle scene--keeps the proceedings thrilling. A must-see for fans of Japanese cinema, as well as all you devotees of samurai weapons and armor. --Miles Bethany

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