I usually try something like Yojimbo, Sanjuro or Stray Dog (which I personally think is a quite a good intro). Rashomon, Ran and Seven Samurai are of course all working choices as well, if you know that the person is ready to sit through them. Ikiru is also a marginal case.

Sometimes I actually give Dreams, but that is only when I know that the person watching it is into that sort of cinema.

A lot of people also seem to love Hidden Fortress, which I personally don’t find that interesting. (Although I haven’t seen it in ages.) But I give it as an option.

Too bad Criterions are hard for you to get, I buy a lot of DVDs and always look forward, when I buy and open a Criterion, it always feels special.

Its funny to me, how you say Ran wouldnt be a good starter film, perhaps your right. I always suggested Kagemusha and Ran before any older film, to me they offer more common epic themes, that attract the young Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fans.
To me its the fans of the epic style movies that would later find great interest in other AK films.

My first Kurosawa, I believe was Stray Dog, not a ideal starter film but it all it took for me, as now I have nearly every DVD region 1 release and a handful of other region releases

I’m actually not so sure if Ran would make a good introduction to Kurosawa for the younger generation — it tends to divide people quite a lot. It seems to me that you either absolutely love it, or then you hate it to your guts.

But Criterion has indeed done a lot of good to bring Kurosawa to the next-generation cinemaphiles. I don’t actually have many Criterion releases in my own shelf, as they are pretty difficult to get hold of where I live, but I am planning to buy them one day.

Unless, of course, our visitor numbers shoot up and will allow me to ask Criterion for “review copies”. I’m not expecting that to happen anytime soon, though…

Actually, in case you are interested, we are currently getting around 100 unique visitors per day, and that number has been steadily rising in the past couple of months. Basically, it has doubled since August.

I suppose it has something to do with the fact that the website has also been rising in Google’s search rankings. AKNI is now somewhere between 25th and 35th when you search for “Akira Kurosawa”.

Still quite a bit to go until it reaches the top 10, of course.

I would of never thought a Kurosawa film would be on there, especially as one of the very first, like to know the story behind that one.

I good entry film in my opinion would be “Ran”. I would be nice to see this spawn new Kurosawa fans but those who find “Dreams”, interesting might be disappointed in any other Kurosawa films, as it resembles very little to his other longer, slower paced films. However a spark of interest is all it really takes.

I have noticed young would be future film makers, taking note of Kurosawa, understanding there is alot he can teach. I really think Kurosawa fans will continue and with the aid of Criterion releases, there should be no shortage.