Throne of Blood
A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, THRONE OF BLOOD, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. THRONE OF BLOOD fuses classical western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theatre to create an unforgettable cinematic experience. THRONE OF BLOOD is Kurosawa’s third adaptation of a western literary classic (The Idiot (1951) was based on a story by Dostoevsky, and The Lower Depths (1957) a Maxim Gorky play), it also marks his first reimagining of the work of William Shakespeare, followed by The Bad Sleep Well (1960), which was loosely inspired by Hamlet, and Ran (1985) which was based on King Lear.