Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa (黒澤 明 or 黒沢 明, Kurosawa Akira; March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998) was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. With a bold and dynamic style strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Known as a hands-on filmmaker, he was heavily involved with all aspects of production as a director, writer, producer, and editor. Following a brief stint as a painter, Kurosawa entered the Japanese film industry in 1936. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and screenwriter, he made his directorial debut during World War II with the popular action film Sanshiro Sugata (1943), released when he was 33. Following the war, he cemented his reputation as one of the most important young filmmakers in Japan with the critically acclaimed Drunken Angel (1948), in which he cast the then-unknown actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role; the two men would then collaborate on 15 more films.

The complete list of Kurosawa's works includes his films in addition to his work in television, theater, and literature.

Two film awards have also been named in Kurosawa's honour. The Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Film Directing is awarded during the San Francisco International Film Festival, while the Akira Kurosawa Award is given during the Tokyo International Film Festival. Kurosawa has also been given a number of state honours, including being named as an officer of the French Légion d'honneur in 1984 and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1986, and he was the first filmmaker to receive the Order of Culture from his native Japan in 1985.

Born 1910-03-23 in Shinagawa, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan. Died 1998-09-06.

On ThumbScore, Akira Kurosawa appears in 14 films with an average audience score of 87.6%, most frequently in the Drama genre.

Sources: Wikipedia, TMDB