Shinobu Hashimoto, the legend who penned the scripts of Akira Kurosawa’s most iconic films including Ikiru (1952) and Seven Samurai (1954), died of pneumonia in his Tokyo home on 19 July, at the age of 100. His first film, Rashomon, was the cornerstone of world cinema.
The title has now been incorporated in the English lexicon for any phenomenon characterised by conflicting interpretations.
He even wrote Masaki Kobayashi’s classical samurai film, Harakiri. His ouevre was not limited to writing. Hashimoto even directed films like I Want to Be a Shellfish (1959), Minami no kaze to nami (1961) and Lake of Illusions (1982). He inspired many Hollywood productions like George Lucas’s first Star Wars film.
Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay is known to loosely based on Shichinin no Samurai or Seven Samurai.
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