Throne of Blood

Definitely not one of Akira Kurosawa's better works. I admit I was a bit tired when I was watching it, but if I can stay energized through the 3.5 hour Seven Samurai, then it isn't necessarily me. This is Kurosawa's take on Macbeth, and all the elements are there: the prophecy of the fates, the rivalry among clans, Lady Macbeth's evil whisperings, even the marching trees. But watching Shakespeare, you revel in every turn of phrase and twist of tongue. Either the translation of this film was poor or that wasn't Kurosawa's intent because the script was nothing special. Well, duh, you say, it's what's done with the visuals that makes all the difference. And it's true that the visuals are stunning as in all of Kurosawa's films, but perhaps he was overly excited about them since you see them over and over and over again in some scenes. Case in point, when the two warriors are lost in the forest's fog at the beginning, I definitely zoned out. After two shots of the men wheeling their horses in the mist and heading off in another direction, I got it! I didn't need 20 more. Toshirô Mifune stars and yet all I remember about his performance is a lot of yelling. There is one redeeming feature to the film and that's Isuzu Yamada who plays the Lady Macbeth character. She simply oozes evil intent with every softly spoken sentence. And with her kimono draped over her so that it drags and softly swishes every time she takes a step, she looks like a giant slug. (In fact, at some point in the film I realized that she reminded me of Roz from Monsters, Inc.!) But, hey, why not just watch her in Yojimbo, one of his much better films?

original title: Kumonosu Jô
year: 1957
length: 105 min.
rating: 2.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050613/combined