Throne of Blood

Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood moves the story of Macbeth into feudal Japan. Two commanders, Taketoki Washizu and Yoshiaki Miki, return from a victorious battle and lose their way in a dense forest, where a mysterious spirit foretells that Washizu will become lord of Spider's Web Castle and that Miki's son will later inherit the title. When part of the prophecy comes true, the ambitious Lady Asaji pushes her husband toward seizing his fate through murder, setting off a struggle between loyalty and ambition that consumes him.

The film was released in 1957 and runs 108 minutes. It is the tenth of the twenty-three films Kurosawa directed, made between I Live in Fear and The Lower Depths. He wrote the screenplay with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni and produced it with Sōjirō Motoki for TOHO and Kurosawa Production. Toshirō Mifune plays Washizu, with Isuzu Yamada as Lady Asaji, Takashi Shimura as Noriyasu Odagura, Akira Kubo as Yoshiteru Miki, Hiroshi Tachikawa as Kunimaru Tsuzuki and Minoru Chiaki as Yoshiaki Miki. Forty-one cast members are credited.

The film holds a rating of 8.8 out of 10 from 47 critics' reviews, and on TMDB it sits at 7.9 out of 10 from more than a thousand votes, a sign of lasting attention from viewers. On IMDb, audience scores also place it among the better-regarded entries in the director's filmography.