Yet more Kurosawa
Mar. 18th, 2010 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyBecause Fridays traffic is worse and I've got stuff to do Saturday.
Throne of Blood has to be one of those titles some marketing person came up with when the film was released internationally. The Japanese didn't HAVE thrones. "Kumonosu-jo" translates to "Spider's Web Castle." Take The Scottish Play, move it to 16th c. Japan, trade three weird sisters for a single old one with a spinning wheel and a vanishing hut, toss in some elements of Noh and lots of fog on the slopes of Mount Fuji. Isuzu Yamada's icy Asaji (the Lady MacBeth character) is one creepy mother, hems squeaking constantly across the polished floors, the perfect foil to Toshiro Mifune's Washizu. I doubt the couple in front of me had seen it before, given the audible gasps during the scene in which Washizu finally and spectacularly meets his end. Rightfully a classic and certainly one of my house favorites. Note to self, must mention the use of horagai (conch bugles) over on the Tousando, since someone was asking about them the other day.
The Bad Sleep Well opens with what has to be the most excruciating wedding banquet ever filmed. A clever and convoluted tale of corporate corruption and revenge, I don't want to spoil it by trying to describe it. Mifune is almost unrecognizable as the perfect corporate secretary who marries the boss' daughter. The bad are bad and the protagonist, whose journey is driven by revenge, isn't a whole lot better. Liked this one a lot.
Throne of Blood has to be one of those titles some marketing person came up with when the film was released internationally. The Japanese didn't HAVE thrones. "Kumonosu-jo" translates to "Spider's Web Castle." Take The Scottish Play, move it to 16th c. Japan, trade three weird sisters for a single old one with a spinning wheel and a vanishing hut, toss in some elements of Noh and lots of fog on the slopes of Mount Fuji. Isuzu Yamada's icy Asaji (the Lady MacBeth character) is one creepy mother, hems squeaking constantly across the polished floors, the perfect foil to Toshiro Mifune's Washizu. I doubt the couple in front of me had seen it before, given the audible gasps during the scene in which Washizu finally and spectacularly meets his end. Rightfully a classic and certainly one of my house favorites. Note to self, must mention the use of horagai (conch bugles) over on the Tousando, since someone was asking about them the other day.
The Bad Sleep Well opens with what has to be the most excruciating wedding banquet ever filmed. A clever and convoluted tale of corporate corruption and revenge, I don't want to spoil it by trying to describe it. Mifune is almost unrecognizable as the perfect corporate secretary who marries the boss' daughter. The bad are bad and the protagonist, whose journey is driven by revenge, isn't a whole lot better. Liked this one a lot.
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Date: 2010-03-19 07:24 am (UTC)Oh wait, it's the other way around ;-P
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Date: 2010-03-19 01:54 pm (UTC)