Before entering films, Akira Kurosawa briefly pursued a career as a painter.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Kurosawa exhibited paintings and became involved with the Proletarian Artists’ League, a left-wing Japanese art movement. He initially hoped to make a living through painting, but financial difficulties and disappointment with the movement gradually weakened that ambition.
His older brother Heigo, a benshi—or silent-film narrator—in Tokyo theaters, helped deepen Kurosawa’s interest in cinema, theater, and foreign films. As talking pictures reduced the demand for benshi, Kurosawa moved toward the film industry himself.
He entered P.C.L. (Photo Chemical Laboratory, later associated with Toho) in 1936 as an assistant director. He worked under director Kajirō Yamamoto and developed skills in screenwriting and production before directing his first feature, Sanshiro Sugata, in 1943. His visual training later became evident in his carefully composed frames and storyboards.