The failure of Kurosawa Academy, as was reported earlier, turns out not to be the only problem that may embarrase Akira Kurosawa 's name, cherished treasure not only for his own surviving family but also for all the Japanese people.
See this article for an earlier report about Kurosawa Academy.
The Academy was spearheaded by Hisao Kurosawa (on the right in this photo), Akira's oldest son and President of Kurosawa Production. With the infamous incident with the Academy, another failure report was surfaced on entertainment tabloid media lately. The project was about so-called "Kurosawa Cinema Village", supposedly a huge theme facility with Kurosawa Memorial Museum, exhibits of some of Kurosawa's open sets, organic farms and hot spring spa (huh?). The facility was planned in Akita city, a northern middle-size city, but a city official now says that they have not heard anything from Kurosawa since their initial talk 2 years ago.
It also was reported last year that Kurosawa production sold the remake rights of Kurosawa's popular "Yojinbo" and "Sanjuro" to Kadokawa Films for 300 million yen. While there is no follow-up news on the production of these films, some people worry that Hisao is selling them off cheap and slowly eating up his father's precious legacy.
A movie critic Koichi Nojima states, "now Akira Kurosawa is not as well known among young generations anymore, so it is doubtful that he can bank on Kurosawa's name much longer. Rather than betting on risky commercial ventures, I believe he should spend more energy to promote the films' value itself, for example by making Kurosawa movies more available overseas."
Source: Zakzak
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