Watch: 蜘蛛巣城 1957 123movies, Full Movie Online – After securing a major victory on the battlefield, Taketoti Washizu and one of his commanders, Yoshiaki Miki, find themselves lost in the maze-like Spider’s Web forest. They come across a spirit-like seer who tells them of their future: both have been promoted because of their victory that day; Washizu will someday be the Great Lord of the Spider’s Web castle while Miki’s son will someday rule as Great Lord as well. When they arrive at the castle, they learn that the first part of the prophecy is correct. Washizu has no desire to become Great Lord but his ambitious wife urges him to reconsider. When the current Great Lord makes a surprise visit to his garrison outpost, Washizu is again promoted to commander of his vanguard but his wife reminds him of the danger that comes with the position. As pressure mounts, Wahizu takes action leading to its inevitable conclusion..
Plot: Returning to their lord’s castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit’s prophecy comes true, Washizu’s scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit’s prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa’s resetting of William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
Smart Tags: #tragedy #villain #opening_a_door #visit #shot_with_an_arrow #shot_with_multiple_arrows #ride #rider #horseman #spear #speared_to_death #commander #general #arrow #bow #japanese #ambition #spectre #cover #encounter #fortress
123movies | FMmovies | Putlocker | GoMovies | SolarMovie | Soap2day
8.1/10 Votes: 52,648 | |
96% | RottenTomatoes | |
N/A | MetaCritic | |
N/A Votes: 639 Popularity: 14.357 | TMDB |
Best Shakespeare on Film
As most people know, this is Shakespeare’s Macbeth rendered by Kurosawa into Noh format for cinema. Not for nothing is Akira Kurosawa regarded as Japan’s greatest director, for this is the best cinematic version of any Shakespeare play (and also one of Kurosawa’s best films). Kurosawa had the advantage of working in a different language (Japanese), so he didn’t have to agonize over the usual dilemma – whether to use Shakespeare’s rotund oratory and blank verse (which is glorious, but goes badly on screen). Kurosawa essentially translates Shakespeare’s poetry into visual images, while keeping dialogue to a minimum. He also had the good fortune of accessing two great cultures – European literature and Japanese visual art (he was originally a painter before entering cinema as a set-designer). There are many painterly images reminiscent of Ukiyo-e (e.g. Washizu full of arrows).The Noh style of acting (like Kabuki, but more refined) seems stilted and exaggerated for the first few minutes; then you realize that is ideally suited to a story like this – more natural acting would seem out of place, as other Macbeth-movies go to prove.
The Japanese title of this film translates as “Cobweb Castle” (or Spider City) and this really should have been the title in English. The film is full of the notion of spiders spinning webs (and plots) in secret. It is worth noting that the witch (or “monster”) is first seen with a ghostly spinning-wheel. This symbolizes the thread of fate, but also reflects the cobweb theme.
The story is sometimes slow-moving, but you have to realize that this is a story of insidious slow rot (hence the references to spiders and cobwebs). The decay is punctured by occasional bursts of violent action, as befits the story. The black-and-white picture adds to the creepiness, and the atmosphere is so thick that the movie works more effectively than “Ran” (Kurosawa’s more polished Shakespeare-adaptation).
Macbeth is the great-granddaddy of the entire horror genre, and Kurosawa is a worthy descendant.
Macbeth-san.
Okay, the warriors Washizu and Miki ride back from a victorious battle through a magic forest and run into a wispy specter that tells them that Washizu will become king while Miki’s son will inherit the kingdom. Coaxed by his wife, Washizu assassinates the king and takes his place. Again coaxed by his wife, he has his friend Miki killed as well. Well, Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) has made a lot of enemies by this time and they gang up on him, attack his castle, and kill him — whereupon Miki’s son takes the throne, thus fulfilling the prophecy.That’s it, in brief. Can I skip the rest of the plot? Read Shakespeare’s MacBeth for the whole story. It’s one of my favorite plays by WS, partly because it’s the shortest that he ever wrote.
I was led to believe Kurosawa’s version of the tale deviated considerably from Shakespeare’s and that it might be almost unrecognizable, but that’s not the case at all. It’s far from a filmed play, of course. In the play we only hear about the woods creeping up on the castle. Here we see the Spider Web Forest in full creepy motion. And if MacBeth is finally killed off stage by Duncan, here Washizu winds up with more arrows sticking out of him than a porcupine has quills. And of course Shakespeare’s poetry is missing. Or, let’s say, whereas Shakespeare’s poetry was verbal, Kurosawa’s is visual.
And what a visual delight it is too, in inexpensive black and white, full frame. A terrific use of fog, lighting, spare sets, minimalistic acting punctuated by outrageous ham. Toshiro Mifune overacts to the extent that, at certain points, it becomes a miracle that his eyeballs stay in their sockets.
There are, however, some differences. I think the editing might be off, or else I missed the part where Washizu gives the order for Miki to be killed. (They bring Washizu Miki’s lopped off head, missing in the play.) If I remember, Madam MacBeth doesn’t become pregnant and have a stillborn child either, as Washizu’s wife does here. Also, in the play, she dies for reasons unexplained. Here, she seems to just disappear from the story, like the Fool in King Lear, unless I looked away from the screen at the wrong moment and missed some subtitles. (Just listening to it is no help because I only understand a few words of Japanese and all of them are unprintable.) “Is this a dagger that I see before me?” is missing, naturally, but the Banquo’s Ghost scene is kept just about intact. It includes the intrusion of Washizu’s wife, trying to explain to the guests that her husband sometimes has these fits and spells when he’s liquored up. (How many ordinary wives have made the same apologies for their ordinary husbands?) But Washizu’s wife does more than try to patch over her husband’s gaffes. In the play, she merely propped up her husband when his ambition weakened, urged him to “screw your courage to the sticking place.” In Kurosawa’s film, she’s the INSTIGATOR of the whole thing. She’s truly Machiavellian. Next to her, Washizu is a guileless moron who takes too much for granted and is too dumb to concoct her kinds of intrigues. Her emoting throughout is highly stylized and seems somehow artificial to Western eyes, but probably more accessible to those Japanese who are in the noh.
I admit I found myself a little confused now and then. Especially during the first half, I couldn’t keep the Lord’s Castle, the Garrison, and the First, Second, and Third Fortresses straight. The play dealt mostly with titles — the Glames or the Glans or whatever they were — but in the film, the prizes are places as well as titles.
It’s a dark film, darker than the play that begat it. The three witches with their bubbling cauldron seem to be figures of fun, but the spectral old man who sings a tale of life is positively depressing, though spookier than the witches. The imagery in this scene is really notable.
I keep hearing that Kurosawa was influenced by John Ford but it’s hard to see how. Kurosawa was attracted to umberous, humorless stories. Ford rarely went without a dance or celebration of some sort. And Kurosawa tried suicide, whereas Ford was never in any such danger except for maybe drinking himself to death. I wonder if it had anything to do with Kurosawa’s having fought on the losing side of a war and Ford’s having been on the winning side.
In any case, don’t miss this.
Original Language ja
Runtime 1 hr 50 min (110 min)
Budget 0
Revenue 13422
Status Released
Rated Not Rated
Genre Drama, History
Director Akira Kurosawa
Writer Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, Ryûzô Kikushima
Actors Toshirô Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Isuzu Yamada
Country Japan
Awards 4 wins & 2 nominations
Production Company N/A
Website N/A
Sound Mix Mono (Western Electric Recording), Mono (Perspecta Sound encoding)
Aspect Ratio 1.37 : 1
Camera N/A
Laboratory N/A
Film Length 2,990 m (Sweden), 3,006 m (11 reels)
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process Spherical
Printed Film Format Digital (Digital Cinema Package DCP), 35 mm