Kurosawa's original idea for the movie he was to make was a film about a day in the life of a samurai, beginning with him rising from his bed and ending with him making some mistake that required him to kill himself to save face. Despite a good deal of research, he did not feel he had enough solid factual information to make the movie, but came across the above-mentioned anecdote about a village hiring samurai to protect them and decided to use that idea. Kurosawa wrote a complete dossier for each character with a speaking role. In it was details about what they wore, their favorite foods, their past history, their speaking habits, and every other detail he could think of about them. No other Japanese director had ever done this.
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