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Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Minoru Chiaki Director: Akira Kurosawa Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Academy Ratio Format: Black & White Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 105 minutes Studio: Criterion Collection Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-05-27 Buy from Amazon |
 "Excellent"This is a fascinating film. This is not really, as commonly assumed, a Japanese version of MacBeth. Kurosawa and his co-workers used the plot of MacBeth as a point of departure to make a superb film about ambition and betrayal. Set in Medieval Japan during a period of constant turmoil, Throne of Blood uses much of the plot of MacBeth. There is no effort to use the great language of Shakespeare, rather Kurosawa and his team reimagined MacBeth in a very specific Japanese context. To substitute for the power and poetry of Shakespeare's writing, Kurosawa uses his distinctive and striking visual style and acting techniques borrowed from Noh theatre. Use of the latter is particularly appropriate as Noh first became popular and matured as an art form during this period of Japanese history. Kurosawa also gives this film a undercurrent of Buddhist disdain for superficial aspects of life. This film is visually striking, gripping in plot, and features wonderful performances, particularly those of Toshiro Mifune and Izusu Yamada as the MacBeth and Lady MacBeth equivalents. One of Kurosawa's best films. "A review of the film""Throne of Blood" was my first introduction to Kurosawa. To sum things up in a couple words, I'd say: Give me more! I've never been into old movies, but one cannot like this movie, and being a Shakespeare fan helps even more, as it does the play justice. Not completely accurate, but close to perfection on the silver screen. Like most of Kurosawas films, this stars Toshiro Mifune. Some say that he is the equivilant of harrison Ford in America. I dissagree. He's better than Ford. He can fit any roll, and his role as a Samurai given his destinee by a witch is very touching, and there are many moments in the movie that you soon won't forget. I strongly recommend any film by Kurosawa, especially Ikiru. Kurosawa is a film-God and can change the way you look at life in just a couple hours.  "'Mononoke'..."I am a student at Nagoya International School, and have recently studied Shakespeare's Macbeth in my English class. After reading the original Macbeth, we watched several versions (Polanski, BBC, and RSC) which included Kurosawa's version of Macbeth, "Throne of Blood". Each of Polanski, BBC, and RSC version reflected Shakespeare's original version of Macbeth, its rich and fluent language, and its fabulously distributed plot. Because of language difference, and difficulty to transfer Shakespearian language directly into Japanese, it seemed as though the value has been lost, but as a Japanese citizen, I was eager to understand that Kurosawa had used old fashioned Japanese language in his film, which created an harmony which can be compared to or to support the lackness of Shakespeare's language. I also enjoyed the way how Kurosawa transferred the witches of the original version, into 'evil spirits' or what is called 'mononoke' in Japanese. Kurosawa probably named the forest and the castle to match the evil spirit , or Macbeth's (Washizu) fate. The evil spirit appeared in white robe, with white messy hair, spinning a wheel in its hand, a stereotype of what a Japanese would imagine as a 'mononoke'. Cobweb or 'spider' was such a great aspect to extract the evilness of the original witches of Macbeth, because of the replacement of the witches to a 'mononoke'. The black and white film also contributed to express the 'spookiness' in the evil spirit. With some of these changes, Kurosawa perfectly fitted Macbeth itself from an English story into a brand new Japanese film, using ancient Japanese culture (ex. feudal systems, japanese chivalry). He was successful in translating the original Macbeth for the Japanese, to spread the wonderfulness of the Shakespearian plays to a new and wide ranged people.  "Throne of Boredom"I have currently done extensive studies of Shakespeare's Macbeth. I watched Kurosawa's movie Throne of Blood and was told to compare the two. I tried to note the differences and the similarities. I found very few similarities in the two. I think that Throne of Blood is an ok movie, don't get me wrong, but I felt that it was no comparison to Macbeth. Throne of Blood has a story line that has many differences to the story line of Macbeth. I understand that many of the happenings in Scotland would never happen in Japan, but there could have been more similarities in the movie. A major part of chilling factors about Macbeth is that the three witches just pop up and are very creepy, but the one witch in Throne of Blood is kind of nice looking and didn't seem very eerie to me; I felt that Kurosawa could have done much more to give the witch a more of a scary feeling. Another difference that could have been added to the movie to make it more like Macbeth was my favorite scene when the door keeper is drunk and has to open the door, and it is a very comedic scene, yet there was no trace of it in Throne of Blood, at this difference I was very disappointed. Also, Kurosawa cut out a very important character in Macbeth! Throughout the whole movie I was wonder, "HEY! Where is Mac duff?" if you didn't notice or didn't find it a big difference throughout the movie, I don't think you watched the same movie! By cutting out Macbeth it took out much of the storyline, there was not a bit of the "Fear Mac duff" or "Not of Women Born." I felt that this was a critical part of Macbeth, and without that there was not much of a need for the witch. There were a few similarities that I noticed throughout the movie, although they were hard to spot. The ending was similar in ways, actually I thought the ending in Throne of Blood was very creative and actually a little more entertaining then the ending in Macbeth. I have to admit if I had watched these two different movies without the help of a teacher, I would have never guessed that Throne of Blood and Macbeth had any similarities; I might have just thought the ending was a coincidence. I definitely didn't find Throne of Blood anything comparable to Macbeth. I feel that Kurosawa butchered Macbeth in so many ways that it wasn't the same story at all. I strongly suggest that people just skip wasting there time watching Throne of Blood and just watch Macbeth. "witches counts as 'mononokes'?"I am a student at Nagoya International School, and have recently studied Shakespeare's Macbeth in my English class. After reading the original Macbeth, we watched several versions (Polanski, BBC, and RSC) which included Kurosawa's version of Macbeth, "Throne of Blood". Each of Polanski, BBC, and RSC version reflected Shakespeare's original version of Macbeth, its rich and fluent language, and its fabulously distributed plot. Because of language difference, and difficulty to transfer Shakespearian language directly into Japanese, it seemed as though the value has been lost, but as a Japanese citizen, I was eager to understand that Kurosawa had used old fashioned Japanese language in his film, which created an harmony which can be compared to or to support the lackness of Shakespeare's language. I also enjoyed the way how Kurosawa transferred the witches of the original version, into 'evil spirits' or what is called 'mononoke' in Japanese. Kurosawa probably named the forest and the castle to match the evil spirit , or Macbeth's (Washizu) fate. The evil spirit appeared in white robe, with white messy hair, spinning a wheel in its hand, a stereotype of what a Japanese would imagine as a 'mononoke'. Cobweb or 'spider' was such a great aspect to extract the evilness of the original witches of Macbeth, because of the replacement of the witches to a 'mononoke'. The black and white film also contributed to express the 'spookiness' in the evil spirit. With some of these changes, Kurosawa perfectly fitted Macbeth itself from an English story into a brand new Japanese film, using ancient Japanese culture (ex. feudal systems, japanese chivalry). He was successful in translating the original Macbeth for the Japanese, to spread the wonderfulness of the Shakespearian plays to a new and wide ranged people. |
