Directed by:
黒澤明Cinematography:
Asakazu NakaiComposer:
Masaru SatōCast:
Toshirō Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura, Akira Kubo, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Minoru Chiaki, Takamaru Sasaki, Chieko Naniwa, Seiji Miyaguchi, Isao Kimura, 三好栄子 (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
As the film begins, two soldiers--Washizu (Toshirô Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki)--find themselves lost in a dense forest during a powerful thunderstorm. Seemingly unable to leave the woods, they encounter a ghostly old woman who predicts that Washizu will soon rise to power. At the goading of his ruthless wife, Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), Washizu embarks on a murderously ambitious path and quickly fulfills the prophecy. However, his ascension is cursed by his brutal actions and soon opposition arises to challenge his blood-stained rule. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (3)
Akira Kurosawa was simply a brilliant filmmaker and his films are incredibly powerful. In this case, it's a movie that can get you with emotions, but at the same time, also with action scenes that are sometimes truly spectacular. The beautiful scene with the arrows in the finale is an excellent climax, where it's evident that Kurosawa had not only a sense for excellent shots but also actors who could deliver what the director envisioned. Mifune was brilliant.
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Kurosawa transfers a Shakespeare tragedy to feudal Japan. More famous than this is the more spectacular Ran, but this adaptation of Macbeth deserves attention too, even if only to watch the excellent performance by Toshiro Mifune in the role of the manipulated, ambitious Washizu. Particularly at the beginning the pace is terribly slow and some scenes drag on to the very brink of being at all bearable, for instance the lost in fog scene. The biggest drawback for the movie is Isuzu Yamada’s performance as Lady Asaji “Macbeth" Washizu. Her acting style is overly theatrical and sometimes she over-acts like nothing on earth. Which, in view of the fact that while being a small role, it is the most important one in the whole movie slash “Macbeth", and the result is rather lame. The movie isn’t as impressive in terms of production design as his later movie, Ran, but the makers made excellent use of the fog and so this is pretty atmospheric, if nothing else. But overall, this was a slight disappointment.
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With each subsequent Kurosawa excursion into Japanese history, my aversion to his exaggerated theatricality grows. It manifests itself in unnatural gestures, rolling eyes, and pathos in speech. Regardless of cultural differences, people in medieval Japan certainly did not speak or act in this way. It is too disruptive for me, a distracting element in the film that otherwise boasts a powerful story inspired by Shakespearean drama. The film's merit lies in its lavishness typical of Kurosawa's historical films and several atmospherically evocative scenes from the mysterious Spider's Web Forest. On the other hand, the direction is static, and the individual shots are, at the very least in some cases, excessively long. Overall impression: 45%.
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Gallery (81)
Photo © Toho Company
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