Japanese screenwriting icon Shinobu Hashimoto dead at 100

Iconic Japanese screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto has died, aged 100.
Hashimoto, whose work included the scripts for influential masterpieces like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, The Seven Samurai,and The Hidden Fortress, passed away on Thursday (19Jul18) at his home in Tokyo.
He wrote almost 80 scripts and collaborated with revered filmmakers like Kurosawa, Kihachi Okamoto, and Masaky Kobayashi.
He honed his craft while battling tuberculosis in a veteran’s hospital during World War Two and mentored under another screenwriting great, Mansaku Itami.
His adaptation of a Ryunosuke Akutagawa short story impressed Kurosawa, who met with the young Hashimoto and encouraged him to expand it. The finished product, Rashomon, served to turn both director and writer into industry hot shots, and Rashonon’s screenplay has since gone on to be considered one of the greatest ever written.
It won Japan’s first international cinema prize at the 1951 Venice Film Festival.