Akira Kurosawa ( or , Kurosawa Akira?, 23 March 1910 – 6 September 1998) was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. In a career that spanned 50 years, Kurosawa directed 30 films. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in film history.

In 1989, he was awarded the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement "for cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world." Akira Kurosawa was born to Isamu and Shima Kurosawa on 23 March 1910. He was the youngest of eight children born to the Kurosawas in a suburb of Tokyo. Shima Kurosawa was forty years old at the time of Akira's birth and his father Isamu was forty-five.

Akira Kurosawa grew up in a household with three older brothers and four older sisters. Of his three older brothers, one died before Akira was born and one was already grown and out of the household. One of his four older sisters had also left the home to begin her own family before Kurosawa was born.

Kurosawa's next-oldest sibling, a sister he called "Little Big Sister," also died suddenly after a short illness when he was ten years old. Kurosawa's father worked as the director of a junior high school operated by the Japanese military and the Kurosawas descended from a line of former samurai. Financially, the family was above average.

Isamu Kurosawa embraced western culture both in the athletic programs that he directed and by taking the family to see films, which were then just beginning to appear in Japanese theaters. Later, when Japanese culture turned away from western films, Isamu Kurosawa continued to believe that films were a positive educational experience. In primary school, Kurosawa was encouraged to draw by a teacher who took an interest in mentoring his talents.

His two older brothers, Heigo and Tachikawa had a profound impact on him. Heigo was very intelligent and won several academic competitions, but also had what was later called a cynical or dark side. In 1923, the Great Kantō earthquake destroyed Tokyo and left 100,000 people dead.

In the wake of this event, Heigo, 17, and Akira, 13, made a walking tour of the devastation. Corpses of humans and animals were piled everywhere. When Akira would attempt to turn his head away, Heigo urged him not to.

According to Akira, this experience would later instruct him that to look at a frightening thing head-on is to defeat its ability to cause fear.

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