Akira Kurosawa Summary

The Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was noted for his visually arresting and intellectually adventurous evocations of Japan's mythic past and agonized present. His films established ... Read more

Critical Essay by Joan Mellen Few [directors] have succeeded in reflecting a world-view which encompasses an entire society, an achievement that writers like Fielding and Tolstoy managed so well for t... Read more

Critical Essay by Alan P. Barr Kurosawa, as obsessively as any other artist, [explores] the nature and possibility of heroic action in a world that is basically corrupt, corrupt almost as a consequenc... Read more

Critical Essay by Akira Iwasaki The thing which distinguishes Akira Kurosawa from other Japanese directors—I would go so far as to call it his great achievement—is precisely that he is f... Read more

[In the following obituary, Thomas praises the achievements of Kurosawa's career.] At the time of his death Sunday of a stroke at his Tokyo home, Akira Kurosawa, who was 88, was widely regarded... Read more

[In the following review, Leyda traces the development of Kurosawa's art, from his earliest films to the ones made after the successful Western debut of Rashomon.] The surprise of the entire fi... Read more

[Father Benito Ortolani, an Italian Jesuit at the Sophia University in Tokyo, has made extensive study of Noh Theater and Japanese films. In the following essay, he examines the recurring spiritual th... Read more

[Dresser is a noted writer on the subject of Japanese cinema. In the following essay, he details the structural similarities and thematic differences between Sanjuro and Shane.] If we understand Donal... Read more

[In the following essay, Cardullo uses The Seven Samurai to illustrate the difference between Fate and Circumstance.]     I must categorize the films of the  ... Read more

[In the following essay, Malpezzi and Clements examine the different value placed on selflessness in the East, as explored in Kurosawa's film Kagemusha.] In Something Like an Autobiography, whi... Read more

[Tadao Sato is one of the most noted film critics in Japan. In the following essay, he provides a plot summary of the film Dreams, and responds to the charges of some other critics that the film is an... Read more

[In the following essay, Parker contends that criticisms of Kurosawa that describe his films as "Western" and his works as cold and distant are not seeing them in the right context. In a... Read more

[In the following review, Wilmington lauds Kurosawa's film Madadayo.] The cinema has given us very few artists of the stature of Japan's Akira Kurosawa, director of the haunting mystery ... Read more