Throne of Blood
Akira Kurosawa is the best known to western audiences, and similarly has directed the samurai films best known in the West. He directed "Seven Samurai", "Rashomon", "Throne of Blood", "Yojimbo" and many others. He had a long association with Toshirō Mifune, arguably Japan's most famous actor. Mifune himself had a production company that produced samurai epics, often with him starring. Two of Kurosawa's samurai movies were based on the works of William Shakespeare, "Throne of Blood" ("Macbeth") and "Ran" ("King Lear"). A number of his films were remade in Italy and the United States as westerns, or as action films set in other contexts. His film "Seven Samurai" is one of the most important touchstones of the genre and the most well known outside Japan. It also illustrates some of the conventions of samurai film in that the main characters are ronin, masterless unemployed samurai, free to act as their conscience dictates. Importantly, these men tend to deal with their problems with their swords and are very skilled at doing so. It also shows the helplessness of the peasantry and the distinction between the two classes.