Though white and Ohio-born, Donald Richie has been one of the most articulate and passionate boosters of Japanese culture in the West since the 1950s. He first went to Japan in 1946 as a civilian clerk-typist for the US government during the Occupation. Richie returned stateside in 1949 to complete his degree in English at Columbia University before setting up permanent residency in Japan in 1953. Over the course of the next four decades, Richie firmly established himself as the leading Western authority on Japanese cinema, penning several landmark books on the industry and some of its most illustrious practitioners (e.g., Akira Kurosawa; Yasujiro Ozu). He has also written English subtitles, curated exhibits and designed and programmed several major American retrospectives of Japanese films. Additionally, Richie has directed, scripted, photographed and scored dozens of "personal" films of his own--working in experimental, animated and documentary forms. (Several are feature-length.)

Best known for his essays and film criticism, Richie has also distinguished himself, to varying degrees, as a novelist, playwright, painter and composer. He spent a number of years lecturing on American literature at Tokyo's Waseda University. Richie has traveled among Japan's cultural elite: he and the noted novelist Yukio Mishima became close friends and confidants at Columbia in the early 50s; Richie was also friends with the 1968 Nobel Laureate for literature, Yasunari Kawabata. He has not limited his cinematic interests to Japan (he wrote a 1970 tome entitled "George Stevens: An American Romantic") nor restricted his intellectual interests to film. He compiled a collection of 19th century American humor and authored an art book provocatively entitled "The Erotic Gods". Still, Japanese cinema has remained the primary prism through which he interprets and explains that country's culture to American audiences. Though fluent in speaking Japanese, Richie never learned how to read the language. Fortunately, his writing (in English and, reportedly, in Japanese) is clear, precise and journalistic in tone. Richie has become a bona fide celebrity in his adopted land.