Throne Of Blood

Arrowing Experience

Throne Of Blood
aka Kumonosu-jô
aka Cobweb Castle
aka Macbeth
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Japan 1957 
Toho 
BFI Blu Ray Zone B

Finally revisiting an old favourite by the greatest ever director... Akira Kurosawa’s Throne Of Blood, one of his many masterpieces, which is somewhat surprising since it comes from a source writer who I do not rate at all highly. That writer being one William Shakespeare, as this movie is an adaptation of his infamous ‘Scottish play’, known to audiences as Macbeth... transposed by Kurosawa and his company to the days of ancient samurai. 

The film starts off announcing its arrival on the credits with an attack of jagged percussion instrumentation while an unsettling, almost atonal melody plays against it as part of the great Masaru Satô’s incredible score (one of many he provided for Kurosawa and other directors). 

So this is the story of Macbeth which, as it happens, I’ve only ever known through this adaptation of it so, honestly, I can’t tell you much about how it shapes up compared to the ‘dread bard’s’ words... other than the three witches have been transposed to a singular character who, always sounds male to me but the subtitles assure me it’s a lady. S/he shapeshifts into other versions of the same apparition throughout the course of the film.

Okay, so this is jam packed with great actors such as my two favourites, Toshiro Mifune as the main man and the exceptional Takashi Shimura in a much more minor role this time around, it has to be said. Added to this are excellent performances by the likes of Isuzu Yamada as this film’s equivalent of Lady Macbeth and Minoru Chiaki as Mifune’s once best friend, before the combined treachery of the prophesised vision and the scheming machinations of the lady come to fruition and turn Mifune against that friend.

And, true to form, the director decided a mock castle would not do so, he had the US Marines stationed in the area help him build portions of a real one to shoot on. Everyone uses this and other locations (including studio bound sets - Cob Web forest being a combination of a real forest and interior sets) to great advantage. Of course, Kurosawa’s trademark shot design and editing combine to make some very sophisticated shots, sometimes including more elabourate camera movements than you might notice, happening without attracting any attention to themselves, blending into the overall edit in an almost throwaway manner.

For instance, early on in the film when the two friends, returning from battle, find the witch in the forest, there’s a brilliant shot (which I had to rewind this time to take in what I’d just thought I’d seen) where the two samurai dismount facing the camera, come towards it and then past it with the camera following from behind, looking over their shoulders at what they are seeing, before going even further, past them and taking their point of view completely. Pretty sophisticated stuff which, like I said, feels just like a throwaway shot when, actually, it’s imparting so much visual information. 

Not to mention some fantastic stuff done with the sound design, such as the sound of the wife’s kimono as she walks in one sequence, being repeated as a forewarning of her presence in the next scene. 

A couple of points of interest about the film. 

One is, the story goes, they had to get Mifune good and drunk for his final scene where hundreds of arrows are shot at him... and also in him... in a sustained sequence. No special effects for that kind of thing in those days, of course. Just blocks of wood under the armour and a reliance on hitting your marks and hoping the company sharp shooters wouldn’t hit you in the face. I still have no idea how the effect with the arrow going through his neck was achieved (nor do I really want to... it’s ‘movie magic’ innit?).

The other thing is... this was the inaugural film played at the opening of the National Film Theatre. Which leads me to my one big criticism of this presentation of it. Apart from the shape certain sections of the print seem to be in (surely you should have been able to get rid of some of those lines digitally?), the BFI have not sought fit to provide subtitles for the male chorus narrating the story at the beginning and end of the film. A terrible oversight if you ask me. 

Still, Throne Of Blood is yet another Kurosawa masterpiece and something that’s not to be missed, although a US version by someone like Criterion may well be a better way to go with it, it has to be said.