It’s Like Macbeth But With More Samurai

by Kenny Cooper

Photo Source: http://strangersonablog.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/throne-of-blood-21.jpg

Great directors make great films and great actors make great films yet, throughout cinematic history there’s always been those partnerships between a director and actor where something magical happens.  Sometimes, the chemistry between an actor and director is so strong that film history can be uniquely made the partnership between Ingmar Bergman and Max von Sydow is a great example, making classic film after film.  Others include Alfred Hitchcock/Jimmy Stewart, Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro, Woody Allen/Diane Keaton, Elia Kazan/Marlon Brando, Orson Welles/Orson Welles (mostly kidding) and John Huston/Humphrey Bogart.  However, I don’t think anyone would object to the notion that the very best of these great partnerships was between director Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune who collaborated on no less than 17 films together, the majority of which has become the cream of the cinematic crop such as Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, and Rashomon which each managed to develop into story archetypes to be used again and again and again.

Kumonosu jô or The Castle of the Spider’s Web or Throne of Blood is certainly one of those greats the two developed together.  Loosely adapted from Kurosawa’s favorite Shakespearean play, Macbeth, Throne of Blood transposed the famous tale of destructive greed and betrayal from 11th century Scotland to late 15th century Japan, still dealing with the immediate aftermath of the Orin War which left the capital of Kyoto devastated and the fate of Japan up to feuding warlords each hungry for the biggest piece of the island’s geopolitical pie.  Mifune plays Washizu, a high-level samurai in the place of the Macbeth character who has recently deftly defended the Great Lord from insurrection.  While heading to the Lord’s castle, he and fellow samurai Miki (played by fellow Kurosawa alum Minoru Chiaki) confront an “evil spirit” which foretells the fates of Washizu, Miki and Miki’s son.  This prophecy, partially confirmed that night as the two samurai are promoted to positions the spirit foretold, leads Washizu on a path of predestined self-destruction that puts Tony Montana to shame.

Washizu proves to be a great role for Toshiro Mifune.  If nothing else, one should watch for the fact that TOSHIRO MIFUNE IS PLAYING MACBETH.  Mifune’s interpretation is intense and ominous yet never feeling inhuman or silly.  His character starts out as an honest and loyal soldier yet allows circumstance, prophecy, the sinister influences of his wife, and (not to be underestimated) his own lust for power to corrupt him into a soulless tyrant and haunted paranoiac.  The way Mifune and the script portray the character, it’s somewhat difficult to see how much of his actions is directed by fate, manipulated by the spirit and his wife, or simply brought forth by his secret evil inner nature.  The character develops several personality shifts in the course of the movie and Mifune plays the various personas of Washizu well, not just vocally but outright physically.  Of his many talents, Mifune had probably the greatest control of his face that any actor who has walked in front a camera has ever had.  Throne of Blood presents many opportunities for Mifune to demonstrate his great facial acting from surprise to rage to confusion to amusement to terror (as seen above) to wonderful effect.  Also, if you watch for it closely, there are a couple instances of that infamous Rashomon/Seven Samurai cackle Toshiro did so well.

The rest of the cast is fantastic in this movie as well.  Isuzu Yamada is almost serpentine as the sinister Lady Macbeth proxy, Lady Asaji Washizu.  Her role as the ambitious lady of the house even manages to outclass the classical Lady Macbeth in villainy, very similar to Mieko Harada’s Lady Kaeda from Kurosawa’s later 1985 epic Ran (based on King Lear).  In contrast, Chiaki plays Miki wonderfully as an honorable man motivated between misplaced loyalty to his friend and his misinterpreted adherence to the prophecy.  Finally Kurosawa alum Takashi Shimada plays the closest thing to Macduff this movie has as Washizu’s eventual nemesis Noriyasu well for as little he appears.

=You really like rain. — Kurosawa’s idol John Ford upon meeting Kurosawa.

You’ve been paying attention to my films. — Akira Kurosawa in response.

Kurosawa was a big user of nature itself as a character in his film, often symbolizing the themes of the movie.  Elsewhere, Kurosawa would use heavy wind and rain in many other movies to symbolize despair amongst other things.  Here, Kurosawa famously uses thick fog to imply the confusion of Washizu.  Other symbols include the forest and birds that seems to symbolize the melding of Washizu’s ambitions and the hand of fate that ascends him before dropping him.  Perhaps, the most forward of the symbols at play, however, is the arrow, seen to be Washizu’s weapon of choice at the very beginning before coming back in one of the greatest action sequences and satisfying conclusions ever captured on film.

Throne of Blood might be eclipsed by some of Kurosawa’s other films in terms of popularity yet remains in my mind the best example of the magic he and Mifune brought to the silver screen when working together, empowered by the archetype-setting plot of one William Shakespeare.  Haunting, exciting, and generally well made like few films can be, Throne of Blood remains one of my favorite movie experiences.  Throne of Blood has become, in many critics’ minds, the best example of Macbeth on cinema.  I’m inclined to agree.

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