If you had asked me last year who Akira Kurosawa was I would’ve replied “some old Japanese dude that all these snobby people keep telling me is awesome”. However, after being harassed by the friends (namely Damion) and many people across the internet (namely Univarn) I’ve now seen a respectable amount of his films, enough to be able to agree with the film enthusiast club that this man was a brilliant filmmaker.
Last year during an episode of The Unnamed Movie Podcast we decided to go through our List of Shame. Even though to this day I haven’t completely squashed that list I’ve definitely put a sizeable dent in it. On that list I admitted to having never seen a film by this Akira Kurosawa fellow. So began the internet harassment (they’re good at that). Now I’ve seen a little over ten of his films. I even hosted a Kurosawa Marathon which ended last month. It was fun and games to see the many aspects of Kurosawa’s films.
Today is significant to many film enthusiasts since, if Mr. Kurosawa were still alive, today would be his 100th birthday. Many blogs that I follow have recently done a lot of writings in memory of the great filmmaker. I’d just like to spend this moment to say thank you to him personally and remind myself that of how ignorant I was just a mere 12 months ago.
If you want to see what the internet thinks of this man check out the following links:
A Life in Equinox’s 23 Days of Kurosawa
Row Three’s Kurosawa Centenary
What are your thoughts on Kurosawa? How many of his films have you seen?