Throne of Blood

Kurosawa transfers a Shakespeare tragedy to feudal Japan. More famous than this is the more spectacular Ran, but this adaptation of Macbeth deserves attention too, even if only to watch the excellent performance by Toshiro Mifune in the role of the manipulated, ambitious Washizu. Particularly at the beginning the pace is terribly slow and some scenes drag on to the very brink of being at all bearable, for instance the lost in fog scene. The biggest drawback for the movie is Isuzu Yamada’s performance as Lady Asaji “Macbeth" Washizu. Her acting style is overly theatrical and sometimes she over-acts like nothing on earth. Which, in view of the fact that while being a small role, it is the most important one in the whole movie slash “Macbeth", and the result is rather lame. The movie isn’t as impressive in terms of production design as his later movie, Ran, but the makers made excellent use of the fog and so this is pretty atmospheric, if nothing else. But overall, this was a slight disappointment. (03/02/2007)

With each subsequent Kurosawa excursion into Japanese history, my aversion to his exaggerated theatricality grows. It manifests itself in unnatural gestures, rolling eyes, and pathos in speech. Regardless of cultural differences, people in medieval Japan certainly did not speak or act in this way. It is too disruptive for me, a distracting element in the film that otherwise boasts a powerful story inspired by Shakespearean drama. The film's merit lies in its lavishness typical of Kurosawa's historical films and several atmospherically evocative scenes from the mysterious Spider's Web Forest. On the other hand, the direction is static and individual shots are, at the very least in some cases, excessively long. Overall impression: 45%. (29/06/2008)

Akira Kurosawa was simply a brilliant creator and his films are incredibly powerful. In this case, we are talking about a film that can evoke emotions, but also includes action scenes that are at times truly magnificent. The beautiful scene at the end with the arrows is an excellent climax, showing that Kurosawa not only had a sense for excellent shots, but also had actors who could do what the director wanted. Mifune was brilliant. (16/01/2015)