Kurosawa has achieved a masterful retelling of Macbeth. The stark black and white settings, full of mist and shadow, give exactly the right feel of foreboding and otherworldliness. Toshirô Mifune strikes all the right notes as a Japanese general initially happy with his position and loyal to the lord he serves, but slowly consumed by a combination of ambition and paranoia. The iconic climax is as exciting as it is tragically inevitable.
Even more memorable than Mifune, Isuzu Yamada as Lady Asaji Washizu is the most chilling Lady Macbeth I have ever seen. In Japanese, the castle is called 'Spider Web Castle', and she is the perfect spider at the centre of her web. She does not plead, cajole, or seduce her husband to move against his lord. She sits in complete stillness and calmly describes dire scenarios of betrayal and destruction as if they were established facts. Her stillness emphasizes Mifune's increasingly restless agitation. When the couple does move against the lord, she moves purposefully and relentlessly; the sound of her rustling silks in the otherwise total silence is strikingly ominous. Yamada's motionless posture before the murder is also neatly contrasted by her inability to stop moving as she descends into madness.
This Macbeth may not be in the original words of Shakespeare, but Kurosawa has instead infused the film with elements of traditional Japanese Noh theatre. This stylistic constraint has given us a film that in mood, tension, and eventual tragedy, captures Shakespeare's play more effectively than many more "realistic" English language efforts.
Even more memorable than Mifune, Isuzu Yamada as Lady Asaji Washizu is the most chilling Lady Macbeth I have ever seen. In Japanese, the castle is called 'Spider Web Castle', and she is the perfect spider at the centre of her web. She does not plead, cajole, or seduce her husband to move against his lord. She sits in complete stillness and calmly describes dire scenarios of betrayal and destruction as if they were established facts. Her stillness emphasizes Mifune's increasingly restless agitation. When the couple does move against the lord, she moves purposefully and relentlessly; the sound of her rustling silks in the otherwise total silence is strikingly ominous. Yamada's motionless posture before the murder is also neatly contrasted by her inability to stop moving as she descends into madness.
This Macbeth may not be in the original words of Shakespeare, but Kurosawa has instead infused the film with elements of traditional Japanese Noh theatre. This stylistic constraint has given us a film that in mood, tension, and eventual tragedy, captures Shakespeare's play more effectively than many more "realistic" English language efforts.