Cowboys are a bunch of nerds! Give me some samurai!
The '60s were an age that saw Hollywood running dry on Western ideas, so they turned elsewhere for influence and found gold in samurai movies. Up until this point, the genre had dominated a large part of moviegoers' diets. Classic Westerns were being cranked out of Hollywood left and right in the '50s, with most bearing a heart of gold, and clear lines in the sand between good and evil.
That's when the conversation jumps over to Japan and enters the world of Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa had been active as a filmmaker for decades by the time cowboys were dominating movie screens. Once the late 50s rolled around, he had already secured several classics under his belt. 1950 saw the release of Rashomon, '52 had Ikiru, '54 introduced us to Seven Samurai, '57 had him re-imagine Macbeth with Throne of Blood, and '58 brought us to The Hidden Fortress.
Kurosawa's movies were also incredibly patient in their pace. That's not to say that they were slow; they actually keep you on the edge of your seat a lot of the time. It really just means that he often gives the audience time to sit and ponder over a character's actions, or builds up the tension leading up to a brawl or battle by letting the soundtrack go quiet for a moment.
The first Western to notably pull from a samurai film would be The Magnificent Seven, which liberally pulls from Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai. This film was made in the States and released in 1960, six years after the original was first released. Both films follow a group of seven individuals who band together to protect a village from oncoming hordes of bandits.
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