Throne of Blood on VHS. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. 1957.
From the box:
Akira Kurosawa’s savage, free-flowing adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth plunges viewers into an eerie, fog-shrouded world of madness and obsession. Set in medieval Japan during a period of feudal conflict, Kurosawa’s masterpiece combines the stylization of the Noh theater with the dynamic energy of the American Western to tell the tragic story of an ambitious warlord. Toshiro Mifune gives one of his finest performances as the proud warrior who is destroyed by his wife’s murderous greed and his own all-consuming desire for power. From its first frenzied battle sequences to the brutal climax, in which the entire forest seems to move against Mifune, [spoiler removed], Kurosawa’s brilliantly staged classic is a cinematic triumph.
DVD Upgrade: Throne of Blood (The Criterion Collection)
