I went in to Throne of Blood knowing absolutely nothing about it, which in retrospect, seems to be the best way I could have been introduced to it. I didn't know that it was his adaptation of Macbeth, set in feudal Japan and featuring Japanese myths and cultural values. But that was my overriding (positive) criticism of the movie; that it drew up that same deep seated consciousness of the ethereal hand of fate I always feel when I read Shakespeare. If I had known that from the start, I think I might have had trouble simply enjoying the story, rather than focusing on the influences, or acknowledging the variations.
I thought about mentioning a few particular scenes which I enjoyed that come readily to mind, but I think I'd have to recount the entire movie. Spider's Web Forest, the evil spirit, pretty much any scene with his snake of a wife, the murders themselves, the guards at the gate, his awful prolonged death, even just one brief moment when he's alerted that his enemies are coming for him, and that the other fortresses have fallen, when he runs towards the camera. The only thing that sets itself apart from the rest is this awful scene at the beginning of the movie, where Washizu and Miki have just met the evil spirit in the forest, and are trying to find their way out to Spider's Web Castle. I'm sure that it's tough to film guys riding lost in a forest, but they choose instead to do it in a smoky field, with the actors just riding in circles for over a minute, looking far too confused considering they never even leave line of sight with the camera. I was incredibly tempted to fast-forward. It's unfair that nothing in the movie can stand out, because it's all so damn good. But if that makes brevity in review hard to come by, it makes watching well worth it. This is the kind of movie you should watch when you want to be thinking about it for weeks afterwards.
