Adapted from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Spider's Nest City is cleverly transferred to Japan, with a wonderful dramatic tone, rooted in traditional Japanese culture, producing such a great fruit. Akira Kurosawa is a world-class film master as a literary screenplay adaptation skill that no one else can, he really stands on the original foundation, with the cornerstone of the savon laid, perfect re-creation, so that once "Macbeth" evolved into today's "Spider's Nest City", its charm is extended.
The film is set in the Warring States of Japan, where warlords are divided and have been fighting for many years. With its complex terrain and dangerous terrain, Spider City is easy to defend and difficult to attack. It is a majestic fortress. It also relied on castles where dukes could easily inherit the throne. A battle in which the generals Eagle, Jin Wu and Miki are defeated, and on the way back, in the dense forest, inadvertently encounter the ghost of the mountain. The ghost said strange prophecy: WuWaShizu will soon become a new city, and will be the glory of Miki, because Miki's son will become the heir of WuWashizu. The two returned to Spider City in horror. Suzutako and his wife, in doubt of the temptations of confusion and greed, end up killing the Lord Stand. When he wanted to continue to follow the prophecy and let Miki's son inherit him, his wife made him betray Miki. Desire drives, the deeper it goes, and prophecy is a unique way to achieve one after another...
Stage adaptations are a popular source of film material. However, there is an insurmountable gap between the film to be adapted by this drama and nature, and many directors are not good at skill, so they smash the brand and still have to create something. The time limit of drama and stage space is rendered to screen space in an infinite extension and film lines, but still retains the essence and soul of the original play, it is very difficult, standing on the basis of the original play to rub into the director's own connotations and ideas is even more difficult. Savon's plays have been adapted into films many times, but even Western critics admit that Akira Kurosawa's adaptations are the best. We can say that this is the tragedy of Akira Kurosawa Savon.
Akira Kurosawa is known as the "King of Cinema", on the one hand, it has a strong foundation in the art of cinema, on the other hand, because of its demanding and perfect requirements for cinema. When filming "Chaos", in order to be realistic, severe burns in the construction of the palace; and in "Spider's Nest City", through the actual effect of the arrow end, he really really found a lot of armor-piercing arrows in Toshiro Mifune, because the head was bare and took great risks, then even the fearless Mifune Toshiro was frightened on the ground, and then he saw Akira Kurosawa, you were afraid. But now it seems that the real arrow effect is really exciting, and the fear in Jiu Jinwu's eyes is more vivid and realistic.
In Akira Kurosawa's samurai films, in the early works, compared to the world-famous "Seven Samurai", I think "Spider's Nest Castle" can reflect the early ideas and essence. In Akira Kurosawa's films there is always a lingering melancholy and guilt, full of despair and desolation. A world of moral decay; the crazy distortion of human desires; a sick society; an emotional breakdown.
The story of "Spider's Nest City" is set in the chaotic world of the Warring States era, and the film uses a lot of techniques to show such a chaotic and disorderly era.
The first is the image of a spider. A traditional Japanese, spiders are bewildering monsters, and the spider web structure is more orderly, symbolizing the labyrinth. "Spider City" is not only a strong fortress, but also a human nature lost by desire. The complexity of spiders is the complexity of human nature. Spider's Nest City is a labyrinth of human depraved desires.
The background music and desolate white at the time, like a ghost mouth singing: "People in the right to screen, jumping into the swimming pool in foul play, hoarding sins do not disperse, lost to the soil ... Carrion fell to the ground and blossomed" lyrics, faint swallows wafting in, as strange and uncertain as fog. The use of traditional Japanese instruments also deepens the rendering effect.
It was as if the rain that had washed away all evil, the wilderness full of sand, the barren mountains, the mountains, the dense forests, the smoke, the ruins of anxiety... These scenes are stage stories often seen in Akira Kurosawa's films. Desolate, desolate, sad, singing with ghosts, is the mood of "all things are ghosts singing". It was the decline of desolation and sickness that would last the expansion of desolation meant lust and greed—the film turned into the theme of ashes of ruin and ashes, with a strong fatalistic mindset. This also deepens the tragic theme of the tragic theme.