Akira Kurosawa

Throne of Blood

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 theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.

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Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1957
  • 109 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #190

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 2K digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary featuring Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck
  • Documentary on the making of the film, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
  • Two alternate subtitle translations, by Japanese film translator Linda Hoaglund and Kurosawa expert Donald Richie
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: An essay by film historian Stephen Prince and notes on the subtitling by Hoaglund and Richie

New cover by Bill McMullen

Purchase Options

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa

AK 100: 25 Films by Kurosawa

DVD Box Set

25 Discs

$319.00

Out Of Print

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 2K digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary featuring Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck
  • Documentary on the making of the film, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
  • Two alternate subtitle translations, by Japanese film translator Linda Hoaglund and Kurosawa expert Donald Richie
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: An essay by film historian Stephen Prince and notes on the subtitling by Hoaglund and Richie

New cover by Bill McMullen

Throne of Blood
Cast
Toshiro Mifune
Taketoki Washizu
Isuzu Yamada
Asaji
Minoru Chiaki
Yoshiaki Miki
Akira Kubo
Yoshiteru Miki
Takamaru Sasaki
Kuniharu Tsuzuki
Yoichi Tachikawa
Kunimaru Tsuzuki
Takashi Shimura
Noriyasu Odagura
Chieko Naniwa
Witch
Credits
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Producer
Sojiro Motoki
Screenplay
Hideo Oguni
Screenplay
Shinobu Hashimoto
Screenplay
Ryuzo Kikushima
Screenplay
Akira Kurosawa
Based on Macbeth by
Shakespeare
Photographer
Asakazu Nakai
Art direction
Yoshiro Muraki
Art supervision
Kohei Ezaki
Recording
Fumio Yanokuchi
Music
Masaru Sato

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Explore

Toshiro Mifune

Actor

Toshiro Mifune
Toshiro Mifune

Akira Kurosawa once said, “The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression. Toshiro Mifune needed only three feet.” The filmmaker certainly gave Mifune a lot of space, however: over the course of sixteen collaborations, the actor and the director created some of the most dynamic characters ever put on-screen, all marked by an intense physicality and a surprising tenderness. Kurosawa first took note of the handsome actor when Mifune was twenty-seven, during an open audition at Toho Studios; he was soon cast in Snow Trail (1947), a film Kurosawa wrote for director Senkichi Taniguchi. Just one year later, Kurosawa gave him the lead in Drunken Angel as a consumptive gangster. Mifune proceeded to inhabit a variety of deeply felt roles for Kurosawa, including an artist hounded by paparazzi (Scandal); a bandit who may or not be a rapist and murderer (Rashomon); a loose cannon ronin who reluctantly protects a village (Seven Samurai); an elderly patriarch terrified of a second nuclear attack (I Live in Fear); and, probably most iconically, the wily, shiftless samurai Yojimbo. Mifune is known for more than his work with Kurosawa; see him in Hiroshi Inagaki’s Oscar-winning Samurai Trilogy and Masaki Kobayashi’s Samurai Rebellion. But it is Kurosawa’s greatest films that are most unimaginable without Mifune’s bravado streaking across them like lightning. The pair parted ways professionally in 1965.

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