werent a lot of the scenes way too long and dragged out, seemingly, to me, for no purpose? like the two guys washizu and miki wandering about in the fog for like two minutes and that pseudo funeral procession? was it to make the movie longer, because it seemed like there was not much depth.
overall i liked it, but the original shakespeare is way better, and ive seen better macbeth movies.
Yes, I would agree with the original poster's point after seeing this last night. I'll make a comparison with another Kurosawa film, Ikiru (which I also watched recently). Whereas Ikiru had some lengthy drawn out scenes I felt they were relevant to the character and the tone the story was looking to set.
In Throne of Blood the pace was slow at points but with no real reason to be so. It worked for the forest scenes where the tone is supposed to be creepy and ethereal, but there were so many other parts of the film similar to it (in terms of being drawn out) they didn't stand out quite as much as they should have.
Throne of Blood is far from a bad film in my eyes of course, and I liked it overall (and can see why many consider it a classic) - but I felt if it could have more scenes that focused more on Mifune's slow descent into corruption/despair/madness rather than long held shots of foggy mountains and the like.
No
shareI just saw it and have to agree unfortunately. The first 20 minutes works really well, but the rest of the film is obvious and drawn-out -- it's basically Shakespeare without the dialogue. The only other Kurosawa films I've seen are Seven Samurai and Rashomon, and both of those, while deliberately paced, were far superior. Especially Seven Samurai, which is such a rich narrative.
shareMy daughter summed it up. "Why are you watching this, it took him 5 minutes just to turn his neck?".
Of all the Samurai movies in the top 250 over the years this has to be the slowest and could have easily been condensed to fit inside the hour.
I actually liked this a lot more than 7 Samurai or Yojimbo.
Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel
It may seem ridiculously long for current casual viewers but not necessarily so at the time. Films in the past took more time in their shots or cutting a scene than they do today. Watch 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Doctor Zhivago, or Lawrence of Arabia to see this style of film making.
Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel
no, no one does feel like you. And your very question expects to be pampered (yes, baby, we all like that). "The original Shakespeare is much better." Oh, you've gone out on such a limb!
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