THRONE OF BLOOD Movie Review

Kumonosujo, Kumonosu-djo
Cobweb Castle
The Castle of the Spider's Web

After seeing Akira Kurosawa's ingenious screen adaptation of Macbeth, which sets the timeless story of greed, ambition, and murder in 16th-century Japan, it's tempting to think that this is how Shakespeare should have done it in the first place. Isuzu Yamada is absolutely mesmerizing as the Lady Macbeth figure—her name here is Asaji—who goads her warrior husband Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) into murdering his warlord and seizing the throne for himself. As the lies and deceit pile up as high as the corpses, the prophecy of a ghostly figure that Washizu encountered early in the film comes to pass, and the movie's action shifts into high gear; Washizu meets his end in a violent, outrageous, stunningly designed climax which has been burned into the memory of anyone who's seen the film. Throne of Blood lays its tale out with the same swift, muscular narrative thrust found in any of John Ford's greatest films, but without the cloying scenes of comic relief. Still, there's humor here too, but of a much darker variety; it's found in the deep ironies of the nightmarish “come-uppance” that Washizu suffers when the forest “moves” toward his castle, and in the legendary “pincushion” finale, which is both a nod to the American western and as stylized as kabuki. Mifune is a wonder. This is a picture that requires his quiet, pensive moments to have the same impact as his big, spectacular death scene—and he brings it off with grace and power. Throne of Blood is a perfect example of not only Shakespeare's universality, but also of how a classic can be reinterpreted in another medium without forsaking its soul.

NEXT STOP … Macbeth (1948), Macbeth (1971), Forbidden Planet, Ran

1957 105m/B JP Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Akira Kubo; D: Akira Kurosawa; W: Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, Riyuzo Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa; C: Asakazu Nakai; M: Masaru Sato. VHS, LV HMV, CRC, IHF