In 1961, Kurosawa released Yojimbo (The Bodyguard), the story of a ronin (a samurai gone rogue) anti-hero who rides into a small town divided between two families. In short order, Sergio Leone made For a Fistful of Dollars, a finely crafted film moulded around one of Clint Eastwood's most memorable roles. It was, indeed, so finely crafted that some critics decided to take a closer look. Not only was the storyfound to be identical with that of Yojimbo, some of the most striking frames turned out to be identically composed. Yojimbo is now widely accepted as the first real spaghetti Western. Other firsts: a lead character who is `the man with no name', the mercenary without a past, and the clinically accurate depiction of violence.For the rest of his career, Leone remained limited to the spaghetti Western. Kurosawa, on the other hand, ranged far and wide, moving with effortless ease from stories about the mean streets through Shakespeare to Ikiru, the story of a man who faces death and knows that he has never lived, which bagged the Golden Bear at Berlin.

Most of these works eventually influenced English film. The characterisation of George Lucas's Star Wars, including the development of the robots R2D2 and C3PO, owe as much to Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (1958) as to the acknowledged source, The Wizard of Oz. Critics have also discovered traces of Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai in the editing and rhythm of bothStar Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. The Hidden Fortress was not released in the West for long because distributors felt that it was far too Japanese. It turned out to be as universal as Japanese anime which, despite language barriers, is now one of the hottest-selling cartoon genres in North America.

The most celebrated Kurosawa remake was probably Rashomon, which John Ritt turned into The Outrage. The opening scene of Stray Dog (1949), showing a man chasing a pickpocket, resurfaced with admirable fidelity in the opening scene of The French Connection. And finally, The Seven Samurai, the only great Western to be made outside Hollywood, was remade as The Magnificent Seven by John Sturges. It was clear evidence that Kurosawa could do a better job on any genre than its native masters. And when Kagemusha shared the Cannes Grand Prix with All that Jazz in 1980, it was taken as a sign that the West's hegemony over world cinema was finally at an end.

Most professionals would however argue that to restrictinstances of Kurosawa's influence to cases of slavish imitation is to miss the point. For his touch is visible in every film now showing in theatres around the world, right up to Godzilla. Rashomon is the example of choice for teaching film students to set up tracking shots. Clips of the bandit and the kidnapped woman in the forest are studies in the composition of action within a static frame. The Seven Samurai was the first film to use multiple cameras. The film also had Kurosawa fans claiming his right to the discovery of the freeze frame, though it is strongly contested by the fans of Francois Truffaut.

The report of Akira Kurosawa's death is, therefore, clearly an exaggeration. He is alive and well, and coming soon to a theatre near you.