Ken Takakura

A graduate of the prestigious Meiji University in Tokyo, Takakura happened by an audition in 1955 at the Toei Film Company, and decided to look in.

Toei found a natural in Takakura as he debuted with Denkô karate uchi (1956) (Lightning Karate Blow) in 1956.

As luck would have it, Japan experienced a boom in gangster films in the 1960s as the Japanese people struggled with the generational differences between those raised in pre-war and post-war Japan and these were Takakura's stock in trade.

Ken Takakura was a Japanese actor best known for his brooding style and the stoic, honorable presence he brought to his roles. Known as the "Clint Eastwood" of Japan, Takakura gained his streetwise swagger and tough guy persona watching yakuza turf battles over the lucrative black market and racketeering in postwar Fukuoka. This subject was covered in one of his most famous movies, Shôwa zankyô-den (1965) in which he played an honorable old-school yakuza among the violent post-war gurentai.

His breakout role came in 1965 playing a ex-con antihero in Abashiri Bangaichi (1965).

Takakura gained international recognition after starring in the 1975 Sydney Pollack sleeper hit The Yakuza (1974) with Robert Mitchum and is probably best known in the West for his role in Ridley Scott's Black Rain (1989) in which he surprises American cops played by Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia by showing he can speak English.

By the time he left Toei in 1976, he had appeared in over 180 films.

He again proved himself bankable to Western audiences in the 1992 Fred Schepisi comedy Mr.

Baseball (1992) starring Tom Selleck. While he slowed down a bit in his older years, he remained active.