Akira Kurosawa [Film Director]

Kurosawa was born in 1910 in Tokyo. In 1936, he joined P.C.L. (present-day Toho) and became an assistant director of Kajiro Yamamoto. He made his directorial debut in 1943 with Sanshiro Sugata. His post-WWII work Drunken Angel (1948) marks his first collaboration with Toshiro Mifune. The duo then goes on to create a number of masterpieces. In 1950, Kurosawa shot Rashomon in the Daiei Kyoto Studios. The film won the Grand Prix at the Venice International Film Festival, elevating the director to world stage. The following film Ikiru (1952) allowed Kurosawa to establish a group work method for screenwriting. In the same year, he started shooting Seven Samurai. This entertainment piece polished with Kurosawa’s signature perfectionism became a huge hit. In 1961, he released The Bodyguard, an exhilarating jidaigeki which depicts a strong and witty outlaw. This was followed by Sanjuro (1962) which can be loosely classified as its sequel. Since the late 1960s, the Japanese film industry saw a serious decline, and Kurosawa was largely shunned. Still, receiving help from international filmmakers, he came back to the limelight with Dersu Uzala (1975). He continued his directorial journey, albeit at a slower pace, and released films such as Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1980) before passing away in 1998.