- Narrator: Until his death in 1998, Kurosawa directed over thirty films, including 'Rashômon', 'Seven Samurai', 'Throne of Blood' and 'Ran'. His work was a huge influence of directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, who revered him as a master of the cinema. He was criticised in Japan for appealing to an International audience, yet he did more than anything else to reveal Japanese society to the West.
- Steven Spielberg: This year the Academy's Board of Governors have voted an Honorary Academy Award to a man who many of us believe is our greatest living filmmaker, and all of us know if one of the few true visionaries ever to work in our medium.
- Narrator: In 1990, at the age of eighty the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was given an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards in Hollywood.
- Akira Kurosawa: [in Japanese] I am deeply honoured to receive such a prestigious award. Thank you.