The greatness of “Throne of Blood” lies in its complex approach to telling its story.
The greatness of "Throne of Blood" lies in its complex, multi-faceted approach to telling its story. If you think about it, Washizu´s tale can be described in a paragraph-length summary. However, Akira Kurosawa uses Japanese artistic styles to comment on Japanese history and culture. Therefore, the film isn´t just a tale of usurpation and violence set against a despairing backdrop--it´s also a meditation on human folly and incorrect assumptions about what people are capable of doing.
Video:
While the 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) black-and-white video transfer betrays the film´s age, it looks decent. There are the expected specks and dust particles, and grain runs amok in a few places. Lighting is a bit unstable in some parts, but that could be an intentional effect (or an inherently uncontrollable situation given the visual effects capabilities of the time). We have a stable transfer, though, so the picture never jumps erratically the way that "Ran" does with Wellspring´s second DVD go at the movie (which was made in the 1980s!).
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 Japanese audio track behaves the way you would expect a mono audio track from the 1950s to act. Everything sounds a bit thin given the era´s limited capacity to capture dynamic ranges, and the only directionality that you´re going to notice comes courtesy of sound effects getting louder or softer to hint at objects being near or far away. However, given what it is, the audio is pretty good. I heard only a few physical defects (such as pops and drop-outs), and hissing has been kept to a bare minimum. Music cues are fairly strong even though they come from only the center channel, and dialogue is always clear and distinct.
There are two optional English subtitle streams. Linda Hoaglund and Donald Richie have different approaches towards translating Japanese into English for film subtitles. Watching the film with either stream will give you the same substantive experience. However, the streams provide different artistic flavorings depending on the use of language, so you gain different cultural nuances after viewing the film with both subtitle streams.
Extras:
Aside from the two English subtitle streams (which provide glimpses of different ways of reading a film), there aren´t that many disc-based extras to accompany "Throne of Blood". Still, I´d rather get substantive fews rather than fluffy manys.
There´s an excellent audio commentary by Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck. Mr. Jeck places the film in the context of Japanese cinema history as well as within Kurosawa´s career. He also discusses how "Throne of Blood" is more than an adaptation of a Shakespearean text--that the movie is as much a Japanese period film (thus, a meditation on Japanese history by Kurosawa) as it is anything else.
You also get the film´s original theatrical trailer as well as color bars for calibrating monitors to proper viewing levels.
--Miscellaneous--
A detailed booklet provides chapter listings, film credits, an informative essay written by Stephen Price (author of "The Warrior´s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa") about the Kurosawa´s method of integrating Shakespeare into the Japanese tradition, essays by Linda Hoaglund and Donald Richie about their approaches to translating Japanese into English, and DVD production credits. Unlike the inserts or booklets from just about any other DVD-making company, Criterion´s booklets usually influence how highly I rate a DVD´s Extras score.
Film Value:
Ultimately, I find "Throne of Blood" to be strange and distancing enough to rate it a bit lower than Kurosawa´s "Ran". Of course, I understand that it´s appropriate that a movie filled with so many mystical elements should feel so weird. The film--filled with powerful visuals and moody atmospherics--is a great experience largely because Kurosawa manages to make very-Japanese elements accessible to an international audience. In a sense, the heavily-stylized filmmaking is what makes "Throne of Blood" so unique.
Video:
While the 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) black-and-white video transfer betrays the film´s age, it looks decent. There are the expected specks and dust particles, and grain runs amok in a few places. Lighting is a bit unstable in some parts, but that could be an intentional effect (or an inherently uncontrollable situation given the visual effects capabilities of the time). We have a stable transfer, though, so the picture never jumps erratically the way that "Ran" does with Wellspring´s second DVD go at the movie (which was made in the 1980s!).
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 Japanese audio track behaves the way you would expect a mono audio track from the 1950s to act. Everything sounds a bit thin given the era´s limited capacity to capture dynamic ranges, and the only directionality that you´re going to notice comes courtesy of sound effects getting louder or softer to hint at objects being near or far away. However, given what it is, the audio is pretty good. I heard only a few physical defects (such as pops and drop-outs), and hissing has been kept to a bare minimum. Music cues are fairly strong even though they come from only the center channel, and dialogue is always clear and distinct.
There are two optional English subtitle streams. Linda Hoaglund and Donald Richie have different approaches towards translating Japanese into English for film subtitles. Watching the film with either stream will give you the same substantive experience. However, the streams provide different artistic flavorings depending on the use of language, so you gain different cultural nuances after viewing the film with both subtitle streams.
Extras:
Aside from the two English subtitle streams (which provide glimpses of different ways of reading a film), there aren´t that many disc-based extras to accompany "Throne of Blood". Still, I´d rather get substantive fews rather than fluffy manys.
There´s an excellent audio commentary by Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck. Mr. Jeck places the film in the context of Japanese cinema history as well as within Kurosawa´s career. He also discusses how "Throne of Blood" is more than an adaptation of a Shakespearean text--that the movie is as much a Japanese period film (thus, a meditation on Japanese history by Kurosawa) as it is anything else.
You also get the film´s original theatrical trailer as well as color bars for calibrating monitors to proper viewing levels.
--Miscellaneous--
A detailed booklet provides chapter listings, film credits, an informative essay written by Stephen Price (author of "The Warrior´s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa") about the Kurosawa´s method of integrating Shakespeare into the Japanese tradition, essays by Linda Hoaglund and Donald Richie about their approaches to translating Japanese into English, and DVD production credits. Unlike the inserts or booklets from just about any other DVD-making company, Criterion´s booklets usually influence how highly I rate a DVD´s Extras score.
Film Value:
Ultimately, I find "Throne of Blood" to be strange and distancing enough to rate it a bit lower than Kurosawa´s "Ran". Of course, I understand that it´s appropriate that a movie filled with so many mystical elements should feel so weird. The film--filled with powerful visuals and moody atmospherics--is a great experience largely because Kurosawa manages to make very-Japanese elements accessible to an international audience. In a sense, the heavily-stylized filmmaking is what makes "Throne of Blood" so unique.
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Average user rating (1-5):
[release]10858[/release]