Translated by Audie E. Bock.

"A first rate book and a joy to read.... It's doubtful that a complete understanding of the director's artistry can be obtained without reading this book.... Also indispensable for budding directors are the addenda, in which Kurosawa lays out his beliefs on the primacy of a good script, on scriptwriting as an essential tool for directors, on directing actors, on camera placement, and on the value of steeping oneself in literature, from great novels to detective fiction."
--Variety

"For the lover of Kurosawa's movies...this is nothing short of must reading...a fitting companion piece to his many dynamic and absorbing screen entertainments."
--Washington Post Book World

Six early films by Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa. The films included comprise: 'Sanshuro Sugata' (1943), 'Sanshuro Sugata No 2' (1945), 'The Most Beautiful' (1944), 'The Men Who Tread On the Tiger's Tail' (1952), 'No Regrets For Our Youth' (1946) and 'One Wonderful Sunday' (1947).

This was Akira Kurosawa's first independent feature and for it he adapted an Ed McBain thriller, transposing the action to Japan. In this tale of revenge, Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) obtains a position as private scretary to Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori), the government official he suspects killed his father. Nishi then marries Iwabuchi's daughter and plans a fitting retribution.