Samurai DVD

Akira Kurosawa

Samurai Film Director

One of the greatest directors of the samurai genre, Akira Kurosawa is famous for capturing, not only the samurai era, but the samurai character. With movie such as Samurai Seven, Yojimbo, or Ran, Akira Kurosawa almost single-handedly defined all samurai films to come. His breakthrough film was Rashomon (1950) which earned him a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and launched his fame outside of Japan. ...more
Although Akira Kurosawa made just as many non-samurai films as he did samurai films, his samurai genre films tend to be the highly prized works from his portfolio. Some, in fact, were based on Shakespeare's plays: Throne of Blood (1957) is based on Macbeth and Ran (1985) is based on King Lear.

Akira Kurosawa was greatly influenced by American film director, John Ford. When Kurosawa finally was able to meet John Ford face-to-face, John Ford said, "You really like rain." Kurosawa replied, "You've really been paying attention to my films."

Akira Kurosawa's films have stood the test of time and will continue to do so. His work set the stage for all samurai film directors to come.

His Samurai Films include: ...top