To the OP: WTF are you on about???
"The trouble is most people are twats or cunts. Or both."

i always get a kick out of this topic

Nonsense. Kurosawa was an internationally acclaimed filmmaker way back in 1951, with Rashomon winning awards in Europe, 13 years before Leone STOLE Fistful of Dollars from Yoshimbo.

This message has been deleted.

No, this is IMDb at its best:
http://www.imdb.com/board/10089881/board/nest/178746981

This is imdb at its best lol.
Top 50 Favourite films
http://www.imdb.com/list/t9JHDeBhWKQ/

Eastwood met Kurosawa and both of them laughed about Clint owing his career to a ripoff of "Yojimbo".

Aren't you forgetting
Seven Samurai
/
The Magnificent Seven
? If Kurosawa was so "unknown", then how did Hollywood know of the existence of Seven Samurai, and why remake it as
The Magnificent Seven
?
The Outrage

• a
  Rashomon
  remake starring Eli Wallach and Paul Newman - followed in 1964. Odd Hollywood behavior for a filmmaker "no one had ever heard of".
  The title of your post should more accurately be titled:
  "Leone wouldn't be known worldwide without Kurosawa."
  You could replace "Leone" with "Van Cleef" or "Eastwood" or "Morricone", and it would still hold true.
  "Why have you lived? Why have you suffered? Is it all some huge, awful joke?"

False. As other posters have indicated Rashomon put Kurosawa on the map.

OP, maybe you should do some research before you start talking out of you rear-end. Rashomon won an Honorary Academy Award a dozen years before Leone released A Fistfull of Dollarsafter that Kurosawa had several international smashes before Leone even became a feature length director.

Leone remade a vastly inferior film into something more exciting
No, Yojimbo isn't vastly inferior to Fistful of Dollars.
Let's be honest, before Leone remade Yojimbo, was he known outside of Japan? No
Actually, he was. Rashomon was critically acclaimed, it won 5 awards, including th5b4e Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Not only Rashomon made Kurosawa worldwide known but it also introduced Japanese cinema in general to the west, including Ozu. Rashomon was released in 1950, who was Leone at that time? An assistant director, with no work to his name.
Let the chips fall where they may

I do not understand your connection. If one wants to explore international film, Kurosawa is easy.
"Ryu-san, you don't quite look your character's age."