Throne of Blood at Film Forum

Set in feudal Japan, Akira Kurosawa's 1957 Kumonosu-jō (part of Film Forum's Kurosawa centennial series) mostly mimics Macbeth in plot and character development, although we're pretty sure Shakespeare didn't imagine such a creepy, haunting soundtrack. While some of the effects haven't aged very well (several scenes of two characters wandering lost through the fog, for example), the climax, which uses real arrows, is utterly harrowing (see above). We found ourselves thinking a lot about the source material, naturally, and its ongoing resonance: absolute power still corrupts absolutely.

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