In this Japanese name, the family name is Kurosawa. in modern times usually consist of a Family name ( Surname) followed by a Given name. A family name or last name is a type of Surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs

Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa on the set of Kagemusha (1980). is a 1980 film by Akira Kurosawa. The title (which means "Shadow Warrior" in Japanese) is a term used for an Impersonator.
Born	March 23, 1910(1910-03-23) Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan
Died	September 6, 1998 (aged 88) (stroke) Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	director, producer & screenwriter
Spouse(s)	Yôko Yaguchi (1945-1985)

Akira Kurosawa (Kyūjitai: 黒澤 明, Shinjitai: 黒沢 明, Kurosawa Akira^?, 23 March 1910 – 6 September 1998) was a prominent Japanese film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Events 1174 - Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose, is elected Bishop of Glasgow. Year 1910 ( MCMX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. In English it calls itself Shinagawa City For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Events 3114 BC - According to the Proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It is also the name of a neighborhood within the ward For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. A film director, or filmmaker, is a person who directs the making of a Film. A film producer is a person who creates the conditions for making movies. Screenwriters or scenarists are Scriptwriters who write the Screenplays from which Films and Television programs are made was a Japanese actress and the wife of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa for 39 years Kyūjitai (in Shinjitai: ja 旧字体 in Kyūjitai 舊字體 meaning "old character form" is the traditional form of the Japanese Kanji used before Shinjitai (in Shinjitai ja [[wikt新字体 新字体]] in Kyūjitai: ja [[wikt新字體 新字體]] meaning "new character form" are the forms of Events 1174 - Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose, is elected Bishop of Glasgow. Year 1910 ( MCMX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Events 3114 BC - According to the Proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) The are the dominant Ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent of these approximately 127 million are residents of Japan A film director, or filmmaker, is a person who directs the making of a Film. A film producer is a person who creates the conditions for making movies. Screenwriters or scenarists are Scriptwriters who write the Screenplays from which Films and Television programs are made His first credited film (Sanshiro Sugata) was released in 1943; his last (Madadayo) in 1993. was the directorial debut of the Oscar -winning Japanese Film director Akira Kurosawa. His many awards include the Légion d'Honneur and an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. "The Oscar" redirects here for the film see The Oscar (film.

Early life

Akira Kurosawa was born to Isamu and Shima Kurosawa on March 23, 1910. Events 1174 - Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose, is elected Bishop of Glasgow. Year 1910 ( MCMX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting He was the youngest of eight children born to the Kurosawas in a suburb of Tokyo. officially, is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. Shima Kurosawa was forty years old at the time of Akira's birth and his father Isamu was forty-five. Akira Kurosawa grew up in a household with three older brothers and four older sisters. Of his three older brothers, one died before Akira was born and one was already grown and out of the household. One of his four older sisters had also left the home to begin her own family before Kurosawa was born. Kurosawa's next-oldest sibling, a sister he called "Little Big Sister," also died suddenly after a short illness when he was ten years old.

Kurosawa's father worked as the director of a junior high school operated by the Japanese military and the Kurosawas descended from a line of former samurai. Financially, the family was above average. Isamu Kurosawa embraced western culture both in the athletic programs that he directed and by taking the family to see films, which were then just beginning to appear in Japanese theaters. Later, when Japanese culture turned away from western films, Isamu Kurosawa continued to believe that films were a positive educational experience.

In primary school, Akira Kurosawa was encouraged to draw by a teacher who took an interest in mentoring his talents. His older brother, Heigo, had a profound impact on him. Heigo was very intelligent and won several academic competitions, but also had what was later called a cynical or dark side. In 1923, the Great Kantō earthquake destroyed Tokyo and left 100,000 people dead. The struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 1158 on the morning of September 1, 1923. In the wake of this event, Heigo, 17, and Akira, 13, made a walking tour of the devastation. Corpses of humans and animals were piled everywhere. When Akira would attempt to turn his head away, Heigo urged him not to. According to Akira, this experience would later instruct him that to look at a frightening thing head-on is to defeat its ability to cause fear.

Heigo eventually began a career as a benshi in Tokyo film theaters. Benshi (弁士 in Japanese) or Katsudō-Benshi (活動弁士 were Japanese performers who provided live narration for Silent films Benshi narrated silent films for the audience and were a uniquely Japanese addition to the theater experience. However, with the impact of talking pictures on the rise, benshi were losing work all over Japan. Heigo organized a benshi strike that failed. Akira was likewise involved in labor-management struggles, writing several articles for a radical newspaper while improving and expanding his skills as a painter and reading literature. Akira never considered himself a Communist, despite his activities that he later would describe as reckless. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based

When Akira Kurosawa was in his early 20s, his older brother Heigo committed suicide. Four months later, the oldest of Kurosawa's brothers also died, leaving Akira as the only surviving son of an original four at age 23.

Early career

In 1936, Kurosawa learned of an apprenticeship program for directors through a major film studio, PCL (which later became Toho). is a large Japanese Independent film Studio. It is headquartered in Chiyoda Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group He was hired and worked as an assistant director to Kajiro Yamamoto. After his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata, his next few films were made under the watchful eye of the wartime Japanese government and sometimes contained nationalistic themes. For instance, The Most Beautiful is a propaganda film about Japanese women working in a military optics factory. is a 1944 Drama Film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film is set in an Optics Factory (a Nikon Judo Saga 2 portrays Japanese judo as superior to western (American) boxing. is a 1945 Film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is based on the novel by Tsuneo Tomita. meaning "gentle way" is a modern Japanese martial art ( Gendai budō) and Combat sport, that originated in Japan in the late Boxing (sometimes also known as English boxing or pugilism) is a Combat sport in which two participants generally of similar weight,

His first post-war film No Regrets for Our Youth, by contrast, is critical of the old Japanese regime and is about the wife of a left-wing dissident who is arrested for his political leanings. is a Japanese film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1946. Kurosawa made several more films dealing with contemporary Japan, most notably Drunken Angel and Stray Dog. is a 1948 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It stars Takashi Shimura as an Alcoholic doctor in postwar Japan who treats a For the 1991 film by Mamoru Oshii see Stray Dog Kerberos Panzer Cops. However, it was his period film Rashomon that made him internationally famous and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. is a 1950 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. The Leone d’Oro ('Golden Lion' is the highest prize given to a film at the Biennale Venice Film Festival. The Venice Film Festival is the oldest Film festival in the world

Directorial approach

Kurosawa had a distinctive cinematic technique, which he had developed by the 1950s, and which gave his films a unique look. He liked using telephoto lenses for the way they flattened the frame and also because he believed that placing cameras farther away from his actors produced better performances. He also liked using multiple cameras, which allowed him to shoot an action scene from different angles. Another Kurosawa trademark was the use of weather elements to heighten mood: for example the heavy rain in the opening scene of Rashomon, and the final battle in Seven Samurai, the intense heat in Stray Dog, the cold wind in Yojimbo, the snow in Ikiru, and the fog in Throne of Blood. is a 1954 Japanese film co-written edited and directed by Akira Kurosawa. For the 1991 film by Mamoru Oshii see Stray Dog Kerberos Panzer Cops. is a 1961 Jidaigeki (period drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa. is a 1952 Japanese film written and directed by the acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. is a 1957 film directed by Akira Kurosawa, which transposes the plot of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth to medieval Japan. Kurosawa also liked using frame wipes, sometimes cleverly hidden by motion within the frame, as a transition device. In Film editing, a wipe is a gradual spatial transition from one image to another

He was known as "Tenno", literally "Emperor", for his dictatorial directing style. He was a perfectionist who spent enormous amounts of time and effort to achieve the desired visual effects. In Rashomon, he dyed the rain water black with calligraphy ink in order to achieve the effect of heavy rain, and ended up using up the entire local water supply of the location area in creating the rainstorm. In the final scene of Throne of Blood, in which Mifune is shot by arrows, Kurosawa used real arrows shot by expert archers from a short range, landing within centimetres of Mifune's body. In Ran, an entire castle set was constructed on the slopes of Mt. Fuji only to be burned to the ground in a climactic scene. is a 1985 film written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. is the highest Mountain in Japan at.An Active volcano that last erupted in 1707–08 it straddles the boundary of Shizuoka and

Other stories include demanding a stream be made to run in the opposite direction in order to get a better visual effect, and having the roof of a house removed, later to be replaced, because he felt the roof's presence to be unattractive in a short sequence filmed from a train.

His perfectionism also showed in his approach to costumes: he felt that giving an actor a brand new costume made the character look less than authentic. To resolve this, he often gave his cast their costumes weeks before shooting was to begin and required them to wear them on a daily basis and "bond with them. " In some cases, such as with Seven Samurai, where most of the cast portrayed poor farmers, the actors were told to make sure the costumes were worn down and tattered by the time shooting started.

Kurosawa did not believe that "finished" music went well with film. When choosing a musical piece to accompany his scenes, he usually had it stripped down to one element (e. g. , trumpets only). Only towards the end of his films are more finished pieces heard.

Influences

A notable feature of Kurosawa's films is the breadth of his artistic influences. Some of his plots are based on William Shakespeare's works: "Ran" is loosely based on King Lear, Throne of Blood is based on Macbeth, while The Bad Sleep Well parallels Hamlet, but is not affirmed to be based on it. William Shakespeare ( baptised King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606 and is considered one of his greatest works Macbeth is among the best-known of William Shakespeare 's plays, and is his shortest tragedy, believed to have been written some time between is a 1960 film directed by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Hamlet is a Tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601 Kurosawa also directed film adaptations of Russian literary works, including The Idiot by Dostoevsky and The Lower Depths, a play by Maxim Gorky. is a 1951 Japanese film by director Akira Kurosawa. It is based on a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel of the same name. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский, sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, Dostoievsky, is a 1957 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, based on the play of the same name by Maxim Gorky. Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov ( In Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в ( &ndash June 18, 1936) better known as Maxim Gorky (Максим Ikiru was inspired by Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich. is a 1952 Japanese film written and directed by the acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy ( –) (Лев Никола́евич Толсто́й, was a Russian Writer widely regarded For the Austrian development critic see Ivan Illich The Death of Ivan Ilych (Смерть Ивана Ильича Smert' Ivana Dersu Uzala was based on the 1923 memoir of the same title by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev. Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала デルス·ウザーラ alternate U Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала alternate US title The Hunter) is the title of a 1923 book by the Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev, telling of his Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev (Влади́мир Кла́вдиевич Арсе́ньев ( September 10 1872 &ndash1930 was a Russian explorer Story lines in Red Beard can be found in The Insulted and Humiliated by Dostoevsky. is a 1965 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa about the relationship between a village doctor and his new trainee The Insulted and Humiliated (better known in English as The Insulted and the Injured) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1861, is Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский, sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, Dostoievsky,

High and Low was based on King's Ransom by American crime writer Ed McBain, Yojimbo may have been based on Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and also borrows from American Westerns, and Stray Dog was inspired by the detective novels of Georges Simenon. is a 1963 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was loosely based on King's Ransom, an 87th Precinct Police procedural by Evan Hunter The United States of America —commonly referred to as the In the sociological field, crime is the breach of a rule or Law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a Punishment Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( May 27, 1894 — January 10, 1961) was an American Author of Hardboiled detective This article deals with the Dashiell Hammett novel called Red Harvest The Western is a fiction Genre seen in Film, Television, Radio, Literature, Painting and other Visual arts. Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (ʒɔʀʒ simˈnɔ̃ in French ( February 13, 1903 &ndash September 4, 1989) was a Belgian writer The American film director John Ford also had a large influence on his work.

Despite criticism by some Japanese critics that Kurosawa was "too Western", he was deeply influenced by Japanese culture as well, including the Kabuki and Noh theaters and the Jidaigeki (period drama) genre of Japanese cinema. is a form of traditional Japanese theatre. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate Make-up worn by some of its performers or is a major form of classic Japanese musical Drama that has been performed since the 14th century is a Genre of Film, Television, and Theatre in Japan. The name means "period drama" and the period is usually the Edo period

When Kurosawa got to meet John Ford, a director commonly said to be the most influential to Kurosawa, Ford simply said, "You really like rain. " Kurosawa responded, "You've really been paying attention to my films. "^[1]

His influence

Kurosawa's films have had a major influence on world cinema and continue to inspire filmmakers, and others, around the globe. World cinema is a term used primarily in English language speaking countries to refer to the Films and film industries of non-English speaking countries

Seven Samurai

Western Film

Seven Samurai has been remade several times in assorted cinema genres, including Westerns, Science Fiction, and Chinese Martial Arts. The main versions, all of which directly use the same plot structure, comprise:

• The Magnificent Seven (1960, Dir. The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 Western film directed by John Sturges about a group of hired gunmen protecting a Mexican village from John Sturges)[1]
• Beach of the War Gods (1973, Prod. John Eliot Sturges ( 3 January 1911 &ndash 18 August 1992) was an American film director Run Run Shaw)
• Battle Beyond the Stars (1980, Prod. Sir Run Run Shaw CBE, GBM ( October 4, 1907) Battle Beyond the Stars is a Roger Corman -produced Science fiction film directed by Jimmy T Roger Corman)
• World Gone Wild (1988, Dir. Roger William Corman (born April 5 1926) sometimes nicknamed "King of the Bs" for his output of B-movies (though he himself rejects this as inaccurate Lee Katzin)
• A Bug's Life (1998, Pixar Studios)

Indian movies

The film has inspired Indian films which feature similar plots:

• Andha Naal
• Khotay Sikkay
• Rajkumar Santoshi's China Gate
• Kamal Hassan's Virumaandi
• Sholay (1975, Dir. A Bug's Life is a 1998 CGI-animated Film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Buena Vista Distribution in the Pixar Animation Studios is a CGI animation production company based in Emeryville California. Khote Sikkay is an Indian film inspired by the American Cowboy genre complete with horses and poncho's Rajkumar Santoshi (राजकुमार सन्तोषी is an Indian Film director and producer of Hindi films China Gate is a 1998 Hindi Bollywood film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. Kamal Haasan (born November 7, 1954 in Paramakudi, India is an Indian Film actor and director, considered among Virumaandi ( 2004) is a Tamil action film directed by Kamal Haasan. Sholay ( Hindi: शोले Urdu: شعلے ( English: Embers or Flames) is an Indian Hindi film by Ramesh Sippy. Ramesh Sippy (ر ميش سپي (b January 23, 1947 in Karachi) is an Indian Film director, best known for directing the popular and )

Novels

The story was also used as inspiration in numerous novels, among them Stephen King's 5th Dark Tower novel, Wolves of the Calla. A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American Author, Screenwriter, Musician, Columnist, The Dark Tower is a series of seven books written by American author Stephen King between 1970 and 2004

Rashomon

Rashomon was also remade by Martin Ritt in 1964's The Outrage. is a 1950 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Martin Ritt ( March 2, 1914 &ndash December 8, 1990) was an American director, Actor, and Playwright The Outrage is a 1964 film that is a Remake of the Japanese film Rashomon (1950 The Tamil films Andha Naal (1954) and Virumaandi (2004), starring Kamal Hassan, employ a storytelling method similar to the one Kurosawa uses in Rashomon. Tamil cinema or Kollywood ( Tamil: கோலிவுட் kōlivūṭ) is the English name of the popular Tamil Film Industry based in the Virumaandi ( 2004) is a Tamil action film directed by Kamal Haasan. Kamal Haasan (born November 7, 1954 in Paramakudi, India is an Indian Film actor and director, considered among In a more recent incarnation, the film "Hero" starring Jet Li, Ziyi Zhang, Tony Leung, and Maggie Cheung also features a 'Rashomon' style story. Hero ( is a 2002 Chinese Martial arts film, directed by Zhang Yimou with music by Tan Dun. The 2005 animated film "Hoodwinked" applies the narrative structure of "Rashomon" to the story of "Little Red Riding Hood. Hoodwinked! is a 2005 Computer-animated family comedy produced by Blue Yonder Films with Kanbar Entertainment Little Red Riding Hood is a famous fairy tale about a young girl's encounter with a wolf "

Rashomon not only helped open Japanese cinema to the world, but also entered the English language as a term for fractured, inconsistent narratives (see rashomon effect). The Rashomon effect is the effect of the Subjectivity of Perception on recollection by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but

Yojimbo

Yojimbo was the basis for the Sergio Leone western A Fistful of Dollars and two Bruce Willis films, prohibition-era Last Man Standing, and modern day Lucky Number Slevin. Sergio Leone ( January 3, 1929 &ndash April 30, 1989) was an Italian Film director. A Fistful of Dollars ( Per un Pugno di Dollari in Italy and officially on-screen in the U Walter Bruce Willis (March 19 1955 is an American actor and Singer-songwriter. Last Man Standing is a 1996 Action film written and directed by Walter Hill, starring Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, Lucky Number Slevin, renamed for DVD as Lucky # Slevin (also known as The Wrong Man) is a 2006 crime Thriller

The Hidden Fortress

The Hidden Fortress is an acknowledged influence on George Lucas's Star Wars films, in particular Episodes IV and VI and most notably in the characters of R2-D2 and C-3PO. is a 1958 film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshirō Mifune as General Rokurota Makabe and Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki George Walton Lucas Jr (born May 14, 1944) is an Academy Award -winning American Film director, producer, Screenwriter Star Wars is an epic Space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas during the 1970s and significantly expanded Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope (originally released as Star Wars) is a 1977 Space opera Star Wars Episode VI Return of the Jedi is a 1983 Space opera Film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas R2-D2 (called R2, or " Artoo " for short is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, an Astromech droid C-3PO ( Nicknamed Threepio) is a Fictional character from the Star Wars universe, who appears in both the original Lucas also used a modified version of Kurosawa's wipe transition effect throughout the Star Wars saga. In Film editing, a wipe is a gradual spatial transition from one image to another

Collaboration

During his most productive period, from the late 40s to the mid-60s, Kurosawa often worked with the same group of collaborators. Fumio Hayasaka composed music for seven of his films — notably Rashomon, Ikiru and Seven Samurai. Fumio Hayasaka (早坂文雄 Hayasaka Fumio August 19, 1914 - October 15, 1955) was a Japanese composer of Classical music Many of Kurosawa's scripts, including Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai and Ran were co-written with Hideo Oguni. Yoshiro Muraki was Kurosawa's production designer or art director for most of his films after Stray Dog in 1949, and Asakazu Nakai was his cinematographer on 11 films including Ikiru, Seven Samurai and Ran. Yoshiro Muraki (born August 15, 1924) is a Japanese Production designer, Art director and Costume designer. Production designer is a term used in the movie and Television industries to refer to the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films The term art director is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in Advertising, Publishing, film and Television, the Internet Asakazu Nakai ( Japanese 中井朝一 ( August 29, 1901 - February 28, 1988) was a Japanese Cinematographer. Kurosawa also liked working with the same group of actors, especially Takashi Shimura, Tatsuya Nakadai, and Toshirō Mifune. } was one of Japan's greatest Actors of the 20th century Born in Ikuno, Japan, one of his earliest film roles was in Kenji Mizoguchi is a Japanese leading Film Actor. He became a star after he was discovered working as a Tokyo shop clerk by filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi during the early Toshirō Mifune (ja 三船 敏郎 Mifune Toshirō toɕiɺoː 1 April, 1920 – 24 December, 1997) was a Japanese His collaboration with the latter, which began with 1948's Drunken Angel and ended with 1965's Red Beard, is one of the most famous director-actor combinations in cinema history.

Later films

Akira Kurosawa (center) gives stage directions to Tatsuya Nakadai (left) and Jinpachi Nezu (right) during the filming of the 1985 Ran. is a Japanese leading Film Actor. He became a star after he was discovered working as a Tokyo shop clerk by filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi during the early is a 1985 film written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

The film Red Beard marked a turning point in Kurosawa's career in more ways than one. In addition to being his last film with Mifune, it was his last in black-and-white. It was also his last as a major director within the Japanese studio system making roughly a film a year. Kurosawa was signed to direct a Hollywood project, Tora! Tora! Tora!; but 20th Century Fox replaced him with Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku before it was completed. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout is a Japanese Film director. He developed a reputation as a consistent Box office hit-maker was a Japanese film actor writer and best known as a celebrated and innovative director. His next few films were a lot harder to finance and were made at intervals of five years. The first, Dodesukaden, about a group of poor people living around a rubbish dump, was not a success. is a film by Akira Kurosawa set in a Japanese Rubbish dump in the period immediately following World War II.

After an attempted suicide, Kurosawa went on to make several more films, although he had great difficulty in obtaining domestic financing despite his international reputation. Dersu Uzala, made in the Soviet Union and set in Siberia in the early 20th century, was the only Kurosawa film made outside of Japan and not in the Japanese language. Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала デルス·ウザーラ alternate U The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 It is about the friendship of a Russian explorer and a nomadic hunter, and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars handed out annually by the U Kagemusha, financed with the help of the director's most famous admirers, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, is the story of a man who is the body double of a medieval Japanese lord and takes over his identity after the lord's death. is a 1980 film by Akira Kurosawa. The title (which means "Shadow Warrior" in Japanese) is a term used for an Impersonator. George Walton Lucas Jr (born May 14, 1944) is an Academy Award -winning American Film director, producer, Screenwriter Francis Ford "Frank" Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is a five-time Academy Award -winning American Film director, The film was awarded by the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival (which was shared this year with Bob Fosse's All That Jazz). The Palme d'Or ( English: Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded to competing films at the Cannes Film Festival. The Cannes Film Festival (le Festival de Cannes founded in 1946 is one of the world's oldest most influential and prestigious Film festivals alongside Venice, All That Jazz is a Palme D'Or winning 1979 American Musical film directed by Bob Fosse. Ran was the director's version of Shakespeare's King Lear, set in medieval Japan. is a 1985 film written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. William Shakespeare ( baptised King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606 and is considered one of his greatest works It was by far the largest project of Kurosawa's late career, and he spent a decade planning it and trying to obtain funding, which he was finally able to do with the help of the French producer Serge Silberman. Serge Silberman ( May 1, 1917 &ndash July 22, 2003) was a French Film producer. The film was an international success and is generally considered Kurosawa's last masterpiece. In an interview, Kurosawa said that he considered it to be the best film he ever made. [2]

Kurosawa made three more films during the 1990s which were more personal than his earlier works. Dreams is a series of vignettes based on his own dreams. is a 1990 Portmanteau and Magical realism film based on actual Dreams of the film's director Akira Kurosawa at different stages of his life Rhapsody in August is about memories of the Nagasaki atomic bomb and his final film, Madadayo, is about a retired teacher and his former students. is a 1991 Film by Akira Kurosawa. The story centers on an elderly Hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki ( is the Capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at Kurosawa died of a stroke in Setagaya, Tokyo, at age 88. A stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain functions due to a disturbance in the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It is also the name of a neighborhood within the ward

After the Rain (雨あがる, Ame Agaru^?) is a 1998 posthumous film directed by Kurosawa's closest collaborator, Takashi Koizumi, co-produced by Kurosawa Production (Hisao Kurosawa) and starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Shiro Mifune, son of Toshirō Mifune. After the Rain is the English title for (雨あがる Ame Agaru) a 1999 film by Takashi Koizumi based on the last script of Akira Takashi Koizumi (小泉堯史 Koizumi Takashi) is a Japanese Film director. Toshirō Mifune (ja 三船 敏郎 Mifune Toshirō toɕiɺoː 1 April, 1920 – 24 December, 1997) was a Japanese Screenplay, script and dialogues were both written by Kurosawa himself. The story is based on a short novel by Shugoro Yamamoto, Ame Agaru.

Personal life

Kurosawa's wife was Yoko Yaguchi. was a Japanese actress and the wife of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa for 39 years He had two children with her: a son named Hisao and a daughter named Kazuko. Kazuko Kurosawa is a Costume designer. She won the 2008 Genie Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design.

Kurosawa was a notoriously lavish gourmet, and spent huge quantities of money on film sets providing an incredibly large quantity of fine delicacies, especially meat, for the cast and crew, although the meat was sometimes left over from recording sound effects of the sound of blades cutting flesh in the many swordfight scenes. For the album by The Jam see Sound Affects. Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced Sounds [3]

He was a close friend of director Ishiro Honda, who directed the kaiju classic "Gojira. Ishirō Honda (本多 猪四郎 Honda Ishirō) sometimes miscredited in foreign releases as "Inoshiro Honda" ( May 7 1911 in Yamagata Prefecture is a Japanese word that means "strange beast" but often translated in English as " Monster. is a successful landmark 1954 Japanese Science fiction film directed and co-written by Ishiro Honda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya "

Awards

Maxim Munzuk as Dersu Uzala (left) and Yury Solomin as Vladimir Arsenyev (right) in the 1975 film Dersu Uzala. Maxim Monguzhukovich Munzuk (Макси́м Монгужу́кович Мунзу́к 15 September 1912 (on other accounts 2 May 1910) - Yury Mefodievich Solomin (Ю́рий Мефо́диевич Соло́мин b Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev (Влади́мир Кла́вдиевич Арсе́ньев ( September 10 1872 &ndash1930 was a Russian explorer Dersu Uzala (Дерсу Узала デルス·ウザーラ alternate U

• 1951 – Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Rashomon
• 1951 – Academy Honorary Award (from 1956 on Best Foreign Language Film) for Rashomon
• 1954 – Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Seven Samurai
• 1965 – Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts^[2]
• 1975 – Academy Award: Best Foreign Language Film for Dersu Uzala
• 1980 – Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival for Kagemusha
• 1982 - Japan Foundation: Japan Foundation Award. The Leone d’Oro ('Golden Lion' is the highest prize given to a film at the Biennale Venice Film Festival. The Venice Film Festival is the oldest Film festival in the world The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards (previously called the Special Award) is given by the discretion of the The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars handed out annually by the U The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars handed out annually by the U The Palme d'Or ( English: Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded to competing films at the Cannes Film Festival. The Cannes Film Festival (le Festival de Cannes founded in 1946 is one of the world's oldest most influential and prestigious Film festivals alongside Venice, The was established in 1972 by an Act of the Japanese Diet as a special legal entity to undertake international dissemination of Japanese culture, and became ^[3]
• 1982 – Career Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival
• 1984 – Légion d'honneur
• 1990 – Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize
• 1990 – Honorary Academy Award
• 2006 – 10th Iran Cinema Celebration, Special honor

Filmography

See also

• Akira Kurosawa Memorial Short Film Competition
• Samurai cinema

Notes

Further reading

• Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema ISBN 0-8223-2519-5
• Akira Kurosawa. Something Like An Autobiography. Vintage Books USA, 1983. ISBN 0-394-71439-3
• Stephen Prince. The Warrior's Camera. Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-691-01046-3
• Donald Richie, Joan Mellen. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0-520-22037-4
• Stuart Galbraith IV. The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Faber & Faber, 2002. ISBN 0-571-19982-8
• Toshimitsu Shima. Kurosawa Akira no iru fukei. Shinchosha, 1991. ISBN 4-103-83501-X
• Bert Cardullo. Akira Kurosawa: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers). University Press of Mississippi, 2007. ISBN 1-578-06997-1
• James Goodwin. Akira Kurosawa and Intertextual Cinema. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-801-84661-7
• James Goodwin (editor). Perspectives on Akira Kurosawa. G. K. Hall & Co. , 1994. ISBN 0-816-11993-7
• Teruyo Nogami. Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies With Akira Kurosawa. Stone Bridge Press, 2006. ISBN 1-933-33009-0
• Manuel Vidal Estevez. Akira Kurosawa. Ediciones Catedra S. A. , 2004. ISBN 8-437-61131-8

External links

• Akira Kurosawa at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Great Performances: Kurosawa (PBS)
• Kurosawa project
• Akira Kurosawa News and Information
• 黒澤明 (Akira Kurosawa) (Japanese) at the Japanese Movie Database