[Kurosawa's] interest is in a certain kind of character. Since all men have much the same reasons for action, their only differentiation can be in how they act. The Kurosawa hero is a very special sort of person and since he (from film to film) shows the same characteristics, it is well to examine the first of the line.

Sugata [in Kurosawa's first film, Sanshiro Sugata] seems to be average in all ways. His only difference is that he wants to be different from what he is. It is he who searches for a teacher and, having found one, persists in learning. The path to inner wisdom, according to Kurosawa, is a very difficult one, so difficult indeed that very few are those who even manage its beginnings—and no one, of course, ever discovers its ending. Yet, difficult though it is, the Kurosawa hero is distinguished by...