What is the Japanese title of Kurosawa's Throne of Blood?

What is the Japanese title of Kurosawa's Throne of Blood? The answer is Kumonosu-jo.

Kumonosu-jō, also rendered Kumonosu-jo or written 蜘蛛巣城, is the Japanese title of Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film Throne of Blood. The title literally refers to a “Spider Web Castle,” reflecting the film's haunted forest, labyrinthine atmosphere, and the sense that its characters are trapped by ambition and prophecy.

The film relocates William Shakespeare's Macbeth from medieval Scotland to feudal Japan. Toshiro Mifune plays the warrior Washizu, the counterpart of Macbeth, while Isuzu Yamada plays his ambitious wife Asaji, whose role parallels Lady Macbeth. Kurosawa drew heavily on Noh theater, using stylized movement, masks, silence, and stark composition rather than reproducing Shakespeare's dialogue directly.

Kumonosu-jō is sometimes written with a long-vowel mark, while English-language references may simplify the spelling to Kumonosu-jo. Those are romanization differences, not different titles. The film is also famous for its final sequence, in which Washizu is killed by arrows fired by his own soldiers, a technically demanding scene that became one of Kurosawa's most remembered endings.