I had the pleasure, well, theoretical pleasure since I took it up only because I thought it would go well with the present recovery from an illness… as I said, the pleasure of watching Akira Kurosawa’s (or, Kurosawa Akira’s, actually if we insisted on being pedantic) ‘Throne of Blood’, well modeled after Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’.
I am not a fan of saying much about the content, and in this case I cannot do so very well because I have not gone through ‘Macbeth’ in any of its formats. However, from what I expect Shakespeare to have written, I believe Kurosawa took the most he could in bringing the action to Japan.
I have to say I was fairly impressed with the general action, especially the monologue provided by the old woman/spirit. I found a good transliteration of the text online, but that was by far not the only noteworthy thing to come out of the story. Namely, I very much enjoyed the following passage as well:
If you tread the path of demons, tread it in the most cruel most hideous manner.
If you build a mountain of corpses build it to the sky.
If you shed blood let it run like a river.
Some might say it appeals to my demonic nature, but oh well; I presently just find it being rather indicative of the approach one should take: a thorough approach.
Also, I rather enjoyed the death of our upstart samurai lord, especially since the moving forest appeared far better than I thought it would.
