born March 23, 1910, Tokyo, Japan
died Sept. 6, 1998, Tokyo
Japanese film director.
He studied painting before becoming an assistant director and scenarist at PCL (later Tōhō) movie studio (1936–43). He wrote and directed his first feature film, Sanshiro Sugata, in 1943, won notice with Drunken Angel (1948), starring Mifune Toshiro , and was internationally acclaimed for Rashomon (1950). His later classic films include Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Yojimbo (1961), Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985). His ability to combine Japanese aesthetic and cultural elements with a Western sense of action and drama made him, in Western eyes, the foremost Japanese filmmaker.