Throne of Blood
18 June 2010, mid-morning
I’ve seen Throne of Blood twice now. Once back when I was in high school and most recently at Cinematheque Ontario, as part of their Kurusawa retrospective. Throne of Blood is Kurusawa’s remake of Macbeth as a samurai film set in feudal Japan. My memory of the film from high school was that it was way too much horse back riding. This accurately sums up the first half of the film. The second half is a lot more interesting, and the pace of the film is more reasonable. Kurusawa must have had some serious ass fog machines at work, because the film is all mist, all the time. The cinematography is at times quite beautiful. Throne of Blood is a good film, but I think it’s very weak when compared to Ran, Kurusawa’s remake of King Lear.