Throne of Blood

Bomb Rating: 

Somebody needs to be losing his job over this.

This is Akira Kurosawa's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Okay, now this film is totally messed up. The actors don't even try to read the Shakespearian lines correctly. First of all, everything is in Japanese. I mean, if I'm going to see an adaptation of Shakespeare, I might as well get an earful of "Thou arts" and "doths," but there's nothing in this film that sounds anything like that. Furthermore, there are two different subtitle translations, yet there's still none of that flowery English in there. Somebody needs to be losing his job over this.

The story follows two childhood friends in feudal Japan, Washizu (Toshiru Mifune) and Miki (Minoru Chiaki). During a battle in which they each lead a force, they happen upon a spirit who makes several predictions. He predicts that Washizu will soon become leader, that Miki will ascend to Washizu's former position, and that Miki's son will eventually ascend to Washizu's position.

This all seems ridiculous to the two men until two of the predictions come true that day. After that, Washizu starts worrying about his eventual demise at the hands of Miki's son, though he has no idea how that might happen. His paranoia isn't helped any by his wife, Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), who primarily sits in one place and says bad things about everybody else.

The whole film obviously should have been about Asaji.

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