Akira Kurosawa

The Profile

Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He directed influential films across multiple genres, including period samurai epics and modern dramas, and achieved major international recognition with Rashomon.

Born in 1910 in Tokyo and died in 1998. Directed Rashomon (1950), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951 and boosted international attention to Japanese cinema. Directed The Seven Samurai (1954), Ikiru (1952), High and Low (1963), Dersu Uzala (1975), and Ran (1985).

Across these reviews, Kurosawa is framed as a foundational Japanese filmmaker whose work spans feudal epics, modern drama, and noir. Repeated praise goes to his visual command, editing, and staging of action, alongside big themes: truth, ethics, social class, war memory, and redemption. Rashomon is highlighted for its multi-testimony structure; Ran for its imagery and Shakespearean scale; High and Low for procedural tension and social contrast. Several reviews note biographical points like his 1970 suicide attempt and later-career masterpieces. Overall sentiment is strongly positive, with occasional reservations about early work and late “twilight” cinema.