[9] A year later, he completed two thrillers back-to-back, Serpent's Path and Eyes of the Spider, both of which shared the same premise (a father taking revenge for his child's murder) and lead actor (Show Aikawa) but spun entirely different stories.

[10] In March 1999, the Hong Kong International Film Festival presented his first retrospective, a five-title-program including The Excitement of the Do-re-mi fa Girls, The Guard from Underground, Serpent's Path, Eyes of the Spider, and License to Live.

[13] Both Bright Future and Doppelganger have nominated for the Cannes Film Festivals[7] In 2005, Kurosawa returned with Loft, his first love story since Seance.

[17] In September 2012, it was announced that he would direct 1905, a film starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Shota Matsuda and Atsuko Maeda.

[27] In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Kurosawa signed an open letter published in Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to be established for humanitarian aid, and the release of hostages.

[28][29][30] Kurosawa's directing style has been compared to those of Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky, though he has never expressly listed those directors as influences.

[32] He has also expressed admiration for American film directors such as Don Siegel, Sam Peckinpah, Robert Aldrich, Richard Fleischer,[33] and Tobe Hooper.

[34] In a 2009 interview with IFC, Kurosawa talked about the reason why he has cast the actor Kōji Yakusho in many of his films: "He has similar values and sensitivities.

"[35] According to Tim Palmer, Kurosawa's films occupy a peculiar position between the materials of mass genre, on the one hand, and esoteric or intellectual abstraction, on the other.

They also clearly engage with issues of environmental critique, given Kurosawa's preference for shooting in decaying open spaces, abandoned (and often condemned) buildings, and in places rife with toxins, pestilence and entropy.

In the same article by the Tokyo Art University, Kurosawa names film critic Hasumi Shigehiko as a mentor and early influence in his filmmaking career.