Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the Japanese director known as “the master of horror,” was a bit nervous about how viewers might react to his first samurai film.

“The Samurai and the Prisoner,” opening in New York and Los Angeles on July 31, followed by a rollout in major U.S. cities ...

Tackling a samurai movie presented Kurosawa with new challenges, including the fundamental task of directing actors in a genre where, unlike modern dramas, there were no predefined parameters for line ...