• Often, and rightly, regarded as on the finest Shakespeare adaptations. Kurosawa lifts Macbeth from the Bard, makes it his own by placing the drama in feudal Japan with Mifune and Isuzu Yamada in the lead roles
  • Bookends with fog and haunting songs from the chorus
Bookends with fog and haunting songs from the chorus
  • Kurosawa uses a nice last supper-like tableau with the arrangement of the council in the opening sections
  • A great scene as the drum beats trepidatiously as Mifune and the Miki character approach their promotion and the fulfillment of the first part of the prophecy
A great scene as the drum beats trepidatiously as Mifune and the Miki character approach their promotion and the fulfillment of the first part of the prophecy
  • A heady meditation on greed, ambition and manipulation— Yamada’s poker-faced embodiment of evil contrasting with Mifune’s animated puppet. Machiavellian. You can see the wheels set in motion and the seed of her deceit planted. Kurosawa brilliantly uses a specific eerie noise when Yamada’s character walks, and she disappears into an open door like a serpent
A heady meditation on greed, ambition and manipulation
  • A great shot at 71 minutes as Kurosawa tracks in on Mifune and then tracks back to reveal Miki’s ghost (that previously was not there)
  • At 90 minutes, in a long shot, Kurosawa tracks left to right across the screen as roughly 150 men on horses advance in union with the camera—he even obstructs the view a few times with ravines and trees- a stunner
  • The final siege of the castle and Mifune’s performance is clearly the film’s finest moment. At 92 minutes Mifune is overlooking the men and it is one of Kurosawa’s single finest frames and sequences with foreground/background work. Jaw-droppingly beautiful. We then get his speech and a barrage of arrows.
Mifune is overlooking the men and it is one of Kurosawa’s single finest frames and sequences with foreground/background work. Jaw-droppingly beautiful
  • It is an unfair comparison but it would be impossible not to note when describing Throne of Blood that largely gone is the rich character blocking compositions that permeates Rashomon, Ikiru and Seven Samurai.
  • Highly Recommend/Must-See border – leaning MS