7 Shakespeare Adaptations For People Who Hate Shakespeare

1) Throne Of Blood

Kurosawa again – Throne of Blood might not be quite as epic in scope as the director’s later production Ran, but it stands tall as one of the filmmaker’s finest works, and perhaps the greatest Shakespeare adaptation ever committed to film. The reason for its success lies in Kurosawa’s refusal to be tied down to the original text; rather, he takes the bare bones of the Macbeth story, hollows the play out by removing much of the dialogue, and leaves something bleakly beautiful and chillingly told.

Relocating Macbeth to feudal Japan, Kurosawa replaces Scottish clans with warring samurai factions and the prophetic witches with an uncanny spirit of the forest. Interestingly, the change in scenery almost seems to help make more sense of the story, while Kurosawa’s re-interpretation of the film as a kind of jidaigeki horror movie is a stroke of genius. Shakespeare has never been this spooky.