Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection
by Akira Kurosawa
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Akira Kubo, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Toshir? MifuneDirector: Akira Kurosawa
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: 109 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: Good
Summary: 4 Stars
Akira Kurosawa's black and white 1957 film Throne of Blood (Kumonosu J?- literally Spider-Web's Castle) is a very good film, but not quite up there with the best of his films, like Seven Samurai, Ikiru, nor The Bad Sleep Well, despite its vaunted adaptation from Shakespeare's Macbeth. That said, the hour and forty nine minute long film, written by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Ryuzo Kikushima, features one of the best performances by its star, longtime Kurosawa leading man Toshir? Mifune as Taketori Washizu, the warrior who has the Macbeth role. Yet, in watching this film, I have come to the conclusion that while there is a minor influence from Macbeth, it is in no way merely a Japanized version of the Bard's play. There are just too many significant differences, as well as the clear power and influence of the Noh Theater on this film, which is absent from other historical Kurosawa classics, period films called jidai-geki.
First off is the notion of determinism. In Macbeth, all the main characters have free will- they are just corrupt from the get go, whereas in this film the main actors either are fated, or- more likely, buy into the idea of fate so strongly that they live out self-fulfilling prophecies. This Orientalist determinism is at great odds with Western ideas of individual free will. It manifests itself in the fact that the minor characters in the film- despite whining about their superiors' flaws, are more or less apparatchiks, whereas the lesser characters in Macbeth are all strong willed, for better or worse. Also, the film is not only about the personal doom that we know awaits Washizu, but that which awaits his whole class of samurai warriors just a few centuries after this film is set- likely the 13 or 1400s, due to the absence of guns. Thus there is a sense of cultural apocalypse that looms- note the beginning and ending choral sequences, straight out of Noh- as well as Greek drama, and set on the steaming and otherworldly and post-Apocalyptic slopes of Fujiyama, whereas the play is more focused on individuals with internal rot, not their whole society. After all, the Great Lord Tsuzuki (Takamaru Sasaki). whom Washizu murders, was himself the murderer of the Great Lord before him, unlike King Duncan in Macbeth. The framing device lends the whole film a very Ozymandian feel.
However, anyone who was entranced by the recent meager Lord Of The Rings trilogy should watch this film, for it defeats that whole series as easily as a samurai kills a foe with one stroke of his sword. Whereas it is more primal and simple a tale than Seven Samurai, it is far more interesting than the usual drama that Hollywood spews. Throne Of Blood may not be a masterpiece, but it is a piece by a master, and as such, it deserves an audience- preferably one with the intellect and ability to discern the difference between an adaptation and a derivation. Whether or not you feel it is a treatise on free will's failures vs. determinism's folly, and what side you come down on, will reveal much about yourself, and such disclosures are what all art strives to do, for after communication, revelation is one of art's greatest qualities.
Lo!
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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