Lim can’t quite remember his first Kurosawa, but it’s not because the experience wasn’t memorable—rather, the filmmaker’s body of work is such a part of his moviegoing life, it feels like Kurosawa had always been there. “He was definitely one of the first arthouse filmmakers I discovered,” Lim says. “This would’ve been as a teenager in the late ’80s, early ’90s, on VHS, and then later in repertory screenings.”
“Kurosawa is maybe unusual in that his films are, for the most…

