Throne of Blood

Kurosawa's take on the tale of blood shed, betrayal, and revenge known as Macbeth is truly something to be impressed by in many way. The first key things that caught my attention about this film is the fact that they changed the three female witches to a single male thread spinner. While this is a different translation of the original story, it does retain the significance of the witches and their connection to the concept and their relation to fate. Since the three witches are suppose to be a representation of not only the unholy trinity, but also the three weird sisters we can see the connection to the male thread spinner. The sisters are supposedly the ones that control everyone's fates by the threads they weave and cut, making the replacing of them with the male thread weaver spirit work in this situation. Another element that liked about this translation is that fact that they placed the event is feudal Japan. Doing this is a major improvement over the original since the value of loyalty and honor were much higher during this time in Japan, creates an even bigger impact on the betrayal and the desire to seek revenge. One element in the film that I was off put by was the appearance of the "Lady Macbeth" like character.  her costume, actions, and total lack of all signs of emotions promote the idea that she has given up her humanity and womanly virtues in the pursuit of power and her dark desires. She doesn't even look human when she emerges from the shadows on the night of the murder, like a spirit of death and proceeds to set up the murder without any sign of any emotions at all. This not only excels at reinforcing the ideas of her giving up what makes her human, but also personally freaked me out by this total lack of any emotion. These different, both in subtlety and Mise-en-Scène elements, really surprised and impressed me with this adaptation of Macbeth, known as Throne of Blood.