i watched seven samurai and throne of blood (spider web castle) yesterday for the first time and if there's anything that strikes me the most about those films is how crisp and clear they are for being shot in the 1950s. my housemate was also impressed and said "that's just light exposed to celluloid, it upscales to HD really well."

seven samurai was really good and it's so easy to see how influential it was on the past 70 years of cinema. it's pacing was really fucking good, the flows of tension and rest were really moving. it's ending is absolutely fantastic too.

i wanted to watch throne of blood too since the most i've known about it is that it's a macbeth adaptation and macbeth is in my top 5 shakespeare plays. both of my housemates fell asleep during it because it was already late by then, but i managed to stay up for all of it. i was really impressed with how the translation of the story to feudal japan felt utterly seamless. it's pacing was much slower, but itself felt more theatrical, successfully building anticipation and payoff. i think this could be seen especially in how the film plays with framing, composition, and long shots, everything feels like it's being simultaneously performed for film and also a stage production.

asaji as the lady macbeth analogue was amazing, her complete control over everything from washizu to her own body movements made her uncanny and the perfect foil to how anxious and excitable washizu is as the macbeth analogue. also the pivotal final scene is probably the most impressive bit of character acting and stunt work i've seen from a lead. absolutely phenomenal film.

nothing to say about toshiro mifune, whom kurosawa said the average japanese actor needs 10 ft of film to get across the emotion mifune can get across in only 3 ft. he was great in both films, as was the rest of the other major leads.