The real threat [to the postwar Japanese film] was the suffocation of new or rebellious artistic tendencies … by the tight, successful patterns of the pre-war "sword films," a form precisely as unbending and as satisfying as our "western." This danger was heightened in recent years by an almost uncritical acceptance of any films made on this pattern exported to America and Europe. This is partly explained by the superficial resemblance of these sword films to the richness and movement of the great Japanese theatre forms; we were grateful for any tokens of that beauty….

With such blocks it is clear that the greatest blessing to the postwar Japanese film is the imagination and courage of Akira Kurosawa. (p. 3)

[Kurosawa looks] at the raw material of the sword film with the same humanity and immediacy that he brought to his modern subjects. He says that he had dreamed of...