This ain’t your father’s Shakespeare! Prepare yourself for “Metal Macbeth”!

There’s an ever-growing list of movies that I’ve seen and intend to review here on Opus, and right near the top of that list is 2002’s Ping Pong, which was written by Kankurô Kudô. Kudô also wrote the fabulous Go, which I have reviewed, and Takashi Miike’s Zebraman, which follows the adventures of a superhero who has all the powers of a… zebra.

With titles like those under his belt, you know I’m going to be intrigued by anything else the man does. However, I can safely say that I never expected anything like his latest project, a play entitled Metal Macbeth.

It is, as you might have guessed, a remake of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. However, it’s set during the heavy metal heydays of 1980 and also in the year 2206 (more info here and here). It has folks decked out in heavy metal leather and chains and sporting big hair, there’s at least one dance number, and it features samurai sword duels.

Don’t believe me? You can see for yourself in the trailer. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve been this excited by dudes in leather choppin’ it up with samurai swords since Wild Zero. Where was this in my 9th grade honors English class?!?

Thanks to the mighty Kaiju Shakedown for the new.