Toshirō Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Akira Kubo, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Minoru Chiaki, Takamaru Sasaki, Gen Shimizu, Kokuten Kōdō, Kichijirō Ueda, Eiko Miyoshi, Chieko Naniwa, Nakajirō Tomita, Yū Fujiki, Sachio Sakai
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
One of a number of films that Akira Kurosawa made in the 1950s and which have become classics, <i>Throne of Blood</i> is the director's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, set in feudal Japan but showing that lust for power is a perennial feature of human society. Washizu (the Macbeth character, Toshiro Mifune) is a soldier serving the lord of Spiders-Web Castle. While riding through a forest wit...
I think that this is a superb tragi-adventure story that stands out well amongst the numerous loose adaptations of Shakespeare that have been made over the years. Kurosawa takes the Scottish play and gives it the "Noh" treatment that delivers an enigmatic and tautly directed rendition of a story of betrayal, power and insanity. Toshirô Mifune is magnificent as "Washizu" who after getting lost with...