One of the most celebrated screen adaptations of Shakespeare into film, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood reimagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his ignominious fall. With Throne of Blood, Kurosawa fuses one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies with the formal elements of Japanese Noh theater to make a Macbeth that is all his own—a classic tale of ambition and duplicity set against a ghostly landscape of fog and inescapable doom.

Disc Features
New high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck
Original theatrical trailer
New essay by Stephen Prince (The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa)
Two alternative subtitle translations: a new version from renowned Japanese-film translator Linda Hoaglund, and Kurosawa expert Donald Richie
Notes on subtitling by Linda Hoaglund and Donald Richie
New and improved English subtitle translation
Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

Japan
1957
109 minutes
Black and White
1.33:1
Japanese