One of the things I really dig about Quentin Tarantino is that he’s a giant fan of movies and other directors. He watches everything, and he lets all that stuff influence him and guide him.

Recently, he was nerding out about Akira Kurosawa, and I wanted to bring the conversation here for you to check out.

Let’s dive in.

What does Tarantino Think of Kurosawa? 

In the video, we hear Tarantino talking about his early encounters with watching Kurosawa films in a film history class at a local community college.

He went to a screening of the masterpiece, Seven Samurai, and talks about the experience of watching the epic unfold on a 16mm print and how the film’s themes of honor and the samurai spirit resonated with a particular audience.

From there, he went to a film festival in Little Tokyo where he was struck by a powerful scene featuring a conversation between a vibrant young woman and an older man, an actor he recognized from the iconic Godzilla films. This led him to a fascinating discovery: Kurosawa and Ishirō Honda, the director of the original Godzilla, often shared cast members, creating a unique link between the worlds of samurai epics and kaiju cinema.

As the video keeps going, we get a mishmash of Tarantino talking Kurosawa across his career, including his influences and how the work the director did inspired him.

Tarantino also shed light on Kurosawa’s unconventional writing process. He described how Kurosawa would intentionally write himself into a corner, challenging his team of writers to devise ingenious solutions to the narrative dilemmas he created.

And that’s what Tarantino does himself now: he uses that as part of his process to make his script work. Write into a corner, you have no idea of a way out, and then sit there and find one.

The influence of Kurosawa on Tarantino’s own work is undeniable. He even recounted a personal story of taking a customer at the video store to see Kurosawa’s late-career masterpiece, Ran, a testament to the enduring power of his films.

That’s the kind of guy Tarantino is; he doesn’t keep these great movies for filmmakers’ secrets, he just shares them with the world.

Summing It All Up

Tarantino paints a vivid picture of a filmmaker whose work transcends cultural boundaries and continues to inspire and captivate audiences and filmmakers alike.

Kurosawa’s legacy is not just in the films he made, but in the indelible mark he left on the art of storytelling.

Let me know what you think in the comments.