I just received the excellent new Eclipse Kurosawa collection. Kurosawa was my passport to Japanese film. I'm sure I saw Seven Samurai at some point, but the first time I became aware of one his films was in 2002 during the traveling retrospective at the High Museum here in Atlanta. SInce then I've devoured every Kurosawa book and Criterion release. So much so that Donald RItchie has become a personal hero.
For the longest time Kurosawa's early works have remained almost unavailable here in the States. Reading about Scandal In The FIlms of Akira Kurosawa, or importing The Idiot is all well and good but to have the chance to own the five pre-Drunken Angel films that formed Kurosawa's bedrock is a dream come true.