Akira Kurosawa had a theory about the international appeal of his films

In the 1990s, Kurosawa appeared on stage at the Oscars to receive a lifetime achievement award from Steven Spielberg and the aforementioned George Lucas. His heritage was secure, but at home in Japan, the international success Kurosawa achieved was sometimes accompanied by accusations that he was conforming to Western tastes. In his interview with Oshima, Kurosawa reiterated that he doesn't understand exactly why his films have found such appeal outside of Japan, but he suspects it might have something to do with his approach to portraying the lives of his characters. :

"I don't know why people react to my films. But I think what attracts foreign audiences the most is the fact that I don't try to please them. If you try to add appeal by playing on Japanese qualities and telling a story that Westerners will find exotic, they react very negatively. But if you, as a Japanese, just tell a story about the concerns of the Japanese, it will appeal to people all over the world, because every country has similar concerns. I guess that's what people find most appealing in my films. There's no point in trying to answer the needs of the foreign market. I have been asked if I make special concessions to appeal to foreign audiences precisely because I don't do anything that pleases them."

What Kurosawa seems to be talking about here is finding the universality in the specific. While critics during his lifetime may have bristled at his increasingly popular films as "not Japanese enough", Kurosawa simply applied the influences he had absorbed to tell stories about people with experiences. relatable. His films are Japanese, but they are not only Japanese, and this has allowed them to be translated across cultures.