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Akira Kurosawa

Brilliant Japanese film director, born 1910, died 1998.
Had an extensive, fruitful relationship with actor Toshiro Mifune.
Won three American Academy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award.
Famous as the director of Seven Samurai, which was remade as The Magnificent Seven.

Akira Kurosawa enrolled as an apprentice with what would come to be Toho Studios. He shortly became an assistant director and then director in the studio. His early works are impressive and show the influence of his love of American movies, particularly those of John Ford, but it was Rashomon which ultimately made his name internationally. Outside of Godzilla movies and anime, Kurosawa's samurai period epics are what most of the world associates with Japanese cinema.

Kurosawa's influences can be seen in the works of Stephen Spielberg (Hook), Martin Scorsese (Kundun), Francis Ford Copolla (Jack), and George Lucas (Indiana Jones and the Death of a Franchise).