After seeing The Lower Depths without the knowledge that Kurosawa was using a Maxim Gorky play for his script; I was extremely impressed by the possibility that Akira could have had such a great skill for dialogue in his bag of tricks, prior to that film, without unleashing it. Of course I was wrong. The Lower Depths is an amazing movie because it was already an amazing play.
Throne of Blood is similar in that it is an amazing play. Though it's not at all the same type of play, and I would prefer The Lower Depths over Macbeth.
This film is very picturesque in it's depiction. Of all the films I've seen of Kurosawa it seems to be the most heavily influenced by Noh (a type of Japanese theater).
If you know Macbeth, you know where it's going. If you don't know Macbeth, you'll still probably know where it's going. So it really comes down to whether or not you like Kurosawa's usual method of story telling. His drawn out character displays really begin to take hold in the second half and culminate with the death of the new Lord. This death is huge as an example of Kurosawa's painterly style. When he knows he has something good, he tends to really stay on it and reiterate it to his audience. Sometimes I just want to scream at the tv, "Come on Akira! I get it already!!" But usually, I can take these occurrences as though looking at a painting. Sometimes I think that Kurosawa could have even been a better painter than a filmmaker.. but really that's just silly talk seeing as he has had so much success as a pioneer of cinema. Even if he had been an unbelievable painter, he still couldn't have had the same impact as he has had as a filmmaker. Anyways, this movie is nice to have around, but I wont be building a shrine to it anytime soon. I liked that it was a bit creepy, but I didn't like that it was so sparse story-wise. Especially since it's story is already a well-known classic. The japanese twist is cool, especially in it's depiction of the supernatural.. but still, I'd pick quite a few other Kurosawa films before going to this one.

There's not really a whole lot to say about this one. It's certainly not his best, but it's pretty good. You already know the story of Macbeth, so imagine it done in 17th century Japanese period costume, and you've got this. Watch it.

Good story and good acting. However if you expect to see alot of sword play you will be dissapointed. Like Hamlet this is a story of self fullfilling prophecy and paranoia.