Akira Kurosawa is arguably the greatest of all Japanese film directors and is respected around the world as one of the masters of the art form. In celebration of the centennial of his birth, this volume pays tribute to Kurosawa's visual style - with more than two hundred images, many never before published. Kurosawa put together scenes with a painterly effect, and all of the most memorable shots are here. He was famous for a meticulous attention to detail, demonstrated in the storyboard paintings, continuity script pages, and behind-the-scences snapshots also included in this volume.Peter Cowie examines how Kurosawa took the samurai genre to its apogee in such films as Yojimbo and Seven Samurai; his literary influences in such films as Throne of Blood [Macbeth] and Ran [King Lear]; and his exploration of our relationship to the modern world in such films as Ikiru and Dreams. To deepen our understanding of Kurosawa's films, Cowie traces connections within the larger context of Japanese culture and highlights recurring themes of formalism and the elements of illuminating the commentary are anecdotes drawn from a wide array of Kurosawa scholars and colleagues, foremost among them Teruyo Nogami, interviewed by Cowie during the making of this book.