Akira Kurosawa

Arguably the most celebrated Japanese filmmaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa had a career that spanned from the Second World War to the early nineties and that stands as a monument of artistic, entertainment, and personal achievement. His best-known films remain his samurai epics _Seven Samurai_ and _Yojimbo_, but his intimate dramas, such as _Ikiru_ and _High and Low_, are just as searing. The first serious phase of Kurosawa’s career came during the postwar era, with _Drunken Angel_ and _Stray Dog_, gritty dramas about people on the margins of society that featured the first notable appearances by Toshiro Mifune, the director’s longtime leading man. Kurosawa would subsequently gain international fame with _Rashomon_, a breakthrough in nonlinear narrative and sumptuous visuals. Following a personal breakdown in the late sixties, Kurosawa rebounded by expanding his dark brand of humanism into new stylistic territory, with films such as _Kagemusha_ and _Ran_, visionary, color, epic ruminations on modern man and nature.