Kurosawa is a screenwriter, director and producer and one of the synonyms for Japanese cinema. He studied painting and worked as a screenwriter and directors’ assistant before making his directing debut with the film Judo Story (Sugata sansiro, 1943). He gained international fame and awards with the film In the Woods (Rashômon, 1950), which won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival in 1951. His other famous films include Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954.), Kagemusha (1980) and Chaos (Ran, 1985). Ironically, he received an Oscar for his film Dersu Uzala (1975), his only film in a foreign language (Russian). Kurosawa often used western elements and literary works in his films. Some of such films are The Bodyguard (Yojimbo, 1961), which is a western in the traditional Japanese environment, Cobweb Castle (Kumonosu jo, 1957), The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru, 1960) and Ran that are all adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. His other films include Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi, 1948), Stray Dog (Nora inu, 1949), Idiot (Hakuchi, 1951), Doomed (Ikiru, 1952), The Hidden Fortress (Kakushi toride no san akunin, 1958), Heaven and Hell (Tengoku to jigoku, 1963) and Clickety Clack (Dodesukaden, 1970), his first film in color.