Trivia: Perhaps best known in the West for scoring Gojira (1954), Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964), and Terror of Mechagodzilla (1978), Akira Ifukube is one of the most-respected and most-beloved classical composers in Japan. Born in a small village in the northern island of Hokkaido in 1914, Ifukube was exposed to Ainu culture -- Japan's equivalent to Native Americans -- at a young age. By his own admission, the improvisational style and traditional motifs of Ainu music greatly influenced Ifukube. He even included an Ainu chant for his score of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. While studying at Hokkaido University in the late 1920s, he started a music group with Fumio Hayasaka, who would go on to write scores for some of Akira Kurosawa's masterworks, and soon Ifukube was winning international awards for his scores. While teaching at the Tokyo Ongaku Gakko, whose students included Toshiro Mayuzumi, he wrote his first score in 1947. Outside of composing for the Godzilla series, Ifukube also wrote some 200 scores for such films as Burmese Harp, Chushingura (1963), and the beloved Zatoichi series. In 1976, he became the president of Tokyo Music University and he has since won numerous prizes for his scores and classical compositions.

Trivia: A director/writer/producer with a flair for special effects-driven action, German Roland Emmerich made himself at home in blockbuster-hungry 1990s Hollywood. Born and educated in West Germany, Emmerich studied production design as well as direction at the Munich Film and Television School. After his student film, The Noah's Ark Principle, debuted at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, Emmerich formed his production company Centropolis and directed supernatural fantasies Making Contact (1986) and Ghost Chase (1987), and the straight-to-video action film Moon 44 (1990). On the latter, he met actor Dean Devlin who subsequently switched jobs to become Emmerich's writing and producing partner once Emmerich set up shop in Hollywood.After making his solo Hollywood debut directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cyborg action fest Universal Soldier (1992), Emmerich and Devlin revealed a talent for conjuring A-level action spectacles out of B-movie scenarios with their first film together, Stargate (1994). A space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptiana and high-tech wizardry, Stargate became an unexpected hit. Emmerich hit his blockbuster stride with his next film, Independence Day (1996). With its eye-popping destruction of major cities and climactic annihilation of a spacecraft via portable computer, Independence Day blew away its summer movie competition on the strength of its visual flash. Geared to repeat with the endlessly- and creatively-hyped version of Godzilla (1998), Emmerich instead faced the conundrum of directing a $100 million grossing film that did not live up to box office expectations. Emmerich and Devlin next turned their epic visions to the decidedly lower-tech (but still CGI-enhanced) action of the American Revolution in the Mel Gibson summer vehicle The Patriot (2000).

Trivia: English director Alex Cox studied law at Oxford--at least until being deflected into theatre through his participation in the University's drama department. Cox switched to a film studies program at University of Bristol, received a Fulbright scholarship, then traveled to the United States to attend the UCLA film school. His plans to become the next Welles or Scorsese were muddied by several years' inactivity, during which time he took a job repossessing automobiles. Drawing from the experience, Cox made his feature-film directorial bow with the wildly inconsistent but very entertaining Repo Man (1984), which served as one of the first starring assignments of Emilio Estevez. Repo Man's musical score was drenched in punk-rock, a symbolic form of violent rebellion explored further in Cox's Sid and Nancy (1987), a fascinating if depressing chronicle of the life and death of "punk" musician Sid Vicious and groupie Nancy Spungen. Critically celebrated for both films, Cox's reputation declined with the meandering western spoof Straight to Hell and the political satire Walker. In the '90s he began repairing the damage with his low-budget, Spanish-language black comedy Highway Patrolman.