THRONE OF BLOOD

Japan, 1957, 105 minutes, Black and white.
Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Throne of Blood is one of the many classics by celebrated Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. He began work during World War Two with some domestic Japanese films but was soon to move to Japanese history, especially the Samurai era. With his Rashomon, a story told from four different perspectives and much imitated afterwards, he moved to such films as The Seven Samurai. His other Samurai films include Sanjuro and Yojimbo which were adapted for American films and Italian films like A Fistful of Dollars. The Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven. Later in his career when he began to make films in colour, he made two more Samurai classics, Kagemusha and Ran which was based on Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Throne of Blood is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth – and shows the clashes of ambition, a monarch egged on by his vengeful wife, the success of power and ruling from a throne of blood.

As with all Kurosawa films, they are meticulously mounted, re-creation of the Samurai period in striking black and white sets with photography in black and white. There is also an atmospheric musical score.

Throne of Blood is a powerful reminder of how Kurosawa was a cinematic genius.

1. This is considered a classic Japanese film. Do you agree? The significance of the title for its themes? The sombre black and white photography, the locations, the formal performances, the techniques of the Samurai legend films?

2. How important for this film was the legendry background? The choir singing the song at the beginning and end? The solemnity of the location and the fogs? The going back in time, the timelessness of the story? A morality play of the past for the present? The stylised arrangement of incidents, characters, themes?

3. How does the film stand as an adaptation of Macbeth? The transposition of the locations from Scotland to Japan? The transposition of the characters and their ambitions? The transpositions of the incidents? Does the film lose in not having Shakespearean poetry but rather sparse dialogue of its own? Is this a fair question?

4. How important was the atmosphere of the play? the fog and the isolation? The ironic comments of ruins and ambitious past, the isolation and desolation, the castles and their names, the labyrinthine forest? The atmosphere of hostility and war? A forest of witches?

5. Impressions and response to Washizu? The initial response to him and his successors? Friendship with Miki and loyalty to the king? The impact of the witches’ prophecy and the fulfilment? Why was he so responsive to his wife's influence? How ambitious was he? Willing to kill once he had killed and could look back? Why was he
under the continuous influence of his wife? The murdering of his friend? The horror of his hallucinations? His consulting the witch again? What state had he reached with the final confrontation of his enemies? His hopes that the forest could not move? His realization of the moving forest? The picture of him with so many arrows in him from his own men? the starkness of his death and the moral comment on his life and ambitions? Was this a deep characterisation? Or was the character a presentation of sinfulness and its punishment?

6. The portrayal of Lady Washizu? The formalism of her acting but the insinuations of her silence? Why was she so ambitious? Her hold over her husband? her driving him to murder? Her reaction to Miki’s son as his heir? use of her pregnancy? Her final excuses for him and the hallucinations? Her going mad and wanting to be rid of the guilt? The fact that we did not see her after this? Was this developed characterisation or again a representation of evil and its punishment?

7. Were the other characters portrayed convincingly? Miki's companionship, his loyalty to Washizu even though he abhorred the death of the king? Miki’s son? The other courtiers, especially in the hallucination banquet? The characterization of the witch?

8. What did the film have to say about social order, ambitions, power, greed, violence and retribution? Is it inevitable that social order will be restored after disorder?

9. What did the film have to say about politics, justice, cruelty, futility of ambitions? a fable of relevance to the whole world?

10. Was this a film of great insight and depth into good and evil? Or was it really a Samurai melodrama well made?