Part of Shakespeare/Kurosawa x3 and Weekend Classics.
Returning to their lord’s castle, samurai warriors Washizu (Toshirô Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki) 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 (Isuzu Yamada), presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit’s prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place.
Director Akira Kurosawa’s vivid, visceral “Macbeth” adaptation sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in the ghostly, fog-enshrouded feudal Japan and infuses the classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.
“THRONE OF BLOOD defeats categorisation. It remains a landmark of visual strength, permeated by a particularly Japanese sensibility, and is possibly the finest Shakespearean adaptation ever committed to the screen.” —Derek Malcom, The Guardian “Akira Kurosawa's remarkable 1957 restaging of ‘Macbeth’ in samurai and expressionist terms is unquestionably one of his finest works — charged with energy, imagination, and, in keeping with the subject, sheer horror.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
