Tatsuya Nakadai
Film Forum is holding a retrospective of films of Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai. The film forum web page is very informative and shows what an impressive career he had. I have seen the films he made with Akira Kurosawa. I am also familiar with Hiroshi Teshigahara's The Face of Another and Masaki Kobayashi's anthology ghost-story Kwaidan, though somehow I don't quite remember his face in either of the two. He has also worked with Kon Ichikawa and Mikio Naruse. There is a short article about his career in new york times too.
It is nice to see a foreign language actor getting a retrospective. Even after having seen so many of his films I had never really noticed him, may be because he took the second lead in most of them, often against Toshiro Mifune who always towers above the rest of the cast. Besides Mifune my other favourite Japanese actors are Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, the father-daughter duo from quite a few of Ozu films.
3 comments:
'Harakiri' is considered by some to be his best. He's the star in that one. Nakadai in Japan is a huge star.
I'm also happy about this retrospective. Great that they are dedicating a career to a little known but suprememely talented actor.
Among my favourite Japanese actors is also Masayuki Mori, the star of ''Ugetsu'', ''Rashomon'' and ''The Bad Sleep Well'' among many others.
I just saw Harakiri... really stunning. It has already become my favourite Samurai movie.
Kinuyo Tanaka from Mizoguchi films was great too.
"The Hidden Fortress" 'tis moi's personal favorite.
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