Throne of Blood Print

Old Ghost Woman: You humans! Never will I comprehend you. You are afraid of your desires - you try to hide them. Taketori Washizu: Miki would never speak of it. He is my best friend. Lady Asaji Washizu: He is ambitious. Children kill their parents for less. This is a wicked world. To save yourself you often first must kill. It is possible that Miki has already betrayed you. I fear this. Taketori Washizu: Cowards! I see it now! You'll slay me and offer my head when you surrender! Yoshiaki Miki: My only wish would be a long, quiet sleep. Taketori Washizu: I feel I am already sleeping and have had a frightening dream. What that witch or spirit said, that is what I dream of. Yoshiaki Miki: We dream of what we wish. Washizu samurai: I have fought in many battles and have seen blood, yet this stain horrifies me. Because this is the blood of a dog, the blood of a despised traitor. He was a coward too. Cried for mercy after his revolt was over. [Morning at Cobweb castle. Washizu, armed, dozes, seated] Asaji attendant: My Lady! [Washizu wakes with a start and looks around, bewildered. He strides into Lady Washizu's quarters, almost bumping into two frightened female attendants. He sees Lady Washizu kneeling, staring blankly out at nothing, nervously washing her hands in a bowl] Lady Asaji Washizu: Will it never be gone? The blood. I wash and wash, yet the blood remains - and the smell! Will my hands never again be clean? Taketori Washizu: Asaji! Lady Asaji Washizu: There is still blood. My hands. Why do they not become clean? I wash and wash, stilll they smell of blood. Taketori Washizu: Asaji! Lady Asaji Washizu: What warrior would not want to be lord of a mighty castle? Washizu Guard #1: I cannot believe that this castle is as strong as it was. Washizu Guard #2: I heard something, too. The rats have begun to leave. Washizu Guard #3: It is said that rats leave the house just before it burns. Lady Asaji Washizu: Admirable, my Lord. You, who would soon rule the world, allow a ghost to frighten you. Old Ghost Woman: [singing] Men are vain and death is long, And pride dies first within the grave, For hair and nails are growing still, When face and fame are gone, Nothing in this world will save, Or measure up man's actions here, Nor in the next - for there is none, This life must end in fear, Only evil may maintain, An afterlife for those who will, Who love this world - who have no son, To whom ambition calls, Even so - this false fame falls, Death will reign - man dies in vain. from ‘Throne of Blood’ (1957) Starring Toshiro Mifune (Lee’s 1941), Takashi Shimura (The Hidden Fortress), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Mifune: The Last Samurai), Gen Shimizu (Yojimbo), Kichijirô Ueda (Rashomon), Minoru Chiaki (Seven Samurai) and Isuzu Yamada (The Great Wall). Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa (Something Like An Autobiography), Ryûzô Kikushima (Sanjuro), Shinobu Hashimoto (Ikiru), and Hideo Oguni (High and Low). Directed by Akira Kurosawa (Kagemusha). Based on ‘Macbeth’ by Billy Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城, Kumonosu-jō, lit. 'Spider Web Castle') is a 1957 Japanese historical drama film co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth from Medieval Scotland to feudal Japan, with stylistic elements drawn from Noh drama. The film stars Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada in the lead roles, modelled on the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. As with the play, the film tells the story of a warrior who assassinates his sovereign at the urging of his ambitious wife. Kurosawa was a fan of the play and intended to make his own adaptation for several years, delaying it after learning of Orson Welles' Macbeth (1948). Among his changes was the ending, which required archers to fire arrows around Mifune. The film was shot around Mount Fuji and Izu Peninsula. Despite the change in setting and language and numerous creative liberties, Throne of Blood is often considered one of the better film adaptations of the play. It won two Mainichi Film Awards, including Best Actor for Mifune. Toshiro Mifune (三船敏郎, Mifune Toshirō, April 1, 1920 – December 24, 1997) was a Japanese actor who appeared in over 150 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration (1948–1965) with Akira Kurosawa in such works as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo. He also portrayed Miyamoto Musashi in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy and one earlier Inagaki film, Lord Toranaga in the NBC television miniseries Shōgun, and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in three different films. Akira Kurosawa (Japanese: 黒澤明, Hepburn: Kurosawa Akira, March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998) was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential film-makers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa entered the Japanese film industry in 1936, following a brief stint as a painter. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and scriptwriter, he made his debut as a director during World War II with the popular action film Sanshiro Sugata (a.k.a. Judo Saga). After the war, the critically acclaimed Drunken Angel (1948), in which Kurosawa cast the then little-known actor Toshiro Mifunein a starring role, cemented the director's reputation as one of the most important young film-makers in Japan. The two men would go on to collaborate on another fifteen films. Rashomon, which premiered in Tokyo, became the surprise winner of the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. The commercial and critical success of that film opened up Western film markets for the first time to the products of the Japanese film industry, which in turn led to international recognition for other Japanese film-makers. Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, including a number of highly regarded (and often adapted) films, such as Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961). After the 1960s he became much less prolific; even so, his later work—including his final two epics, Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985)—continued to receive great acclaim, though more often abroad than in Japan. In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Posthumously, he was named "Asian of the Century" in the "Arts, Literature, and Culture" category by AsianWeek magazine and CNN, cited there as being among the five people who most prominently contributed to the improvement of Asia in the 20th century. His career has been honored by many retrospectives, critical studies and biographies in both print and video, and by releases in many consumer media. Source: Wikipedia