Ken Takakura dead: Japanese actor known for stoic roles passes away aged 83
Takakura is perhaps best known abroad for his police inspector role in Ridley Scott's Black Rain in 1989
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Your support makes all the difference.Ken Takakura has died from lymphoma at the age of 83.
The actor, who is best known for playing outlaws and stoic heroes in scores of Japanese films, died on 10 November in a Tokyo hospital where he had been treated, according to his office and local media reports.
The news of his death topped Japanese news programmes almost continuously, and major newspapers distributed supplements in central Tokyo.
Takakura made his debut in 1956 and became famous for yakuza films such as Abashiri Prison in the 1960s. Likened to Clint Eastwood, he appeared in detective stories and dramas including the 1977 film The Yellow Handkerchief and 1999's Railroad Man, which won him a best actor award at the Montreal World Film Festival.
But he is perhaps best known abroad for his police inspector role in Ridley Scott's Black Rain in 1989.
Much of his appeal to the Japanese public stemmed from his image as a hero fighting authority figures on behalf of the poor and weak - although in a career spanning more than 200 films he sometimes played comic roles, such as his 1992 portrayal of a coach in Mr Baseball.
Unlike many Japanese celebrities, Takakura shunned the usual rounds of television variety shows and melodramas, maintaining a John Wayne-like aura of toughness.
Takakura was born in 1931 in Fukuoka, southern Japan, as Goichi Oda.
He was recruited by a major film production while he was applying for a managerial position.
Shintaro Ishihara, 82, an award-winning writer and politician, said: “He was the last big star (in Japan).
“And yet, Ken-san lived a really healthy, sound life, unlike many other stars who often end up paying the price later on.”
Despite taking on many outlaw roles in yakuza films, Takakura said today's gangster movies did not interest him.
“I like movies that picture the human heart and linger with me,” he told an interviewer of the Japan Subculture Research Centre. The Deer Hunter, Gladiator and The Godfather were among his favourites, he said.
In the 2012 award-winning Dearest, the last of Takakura's films, he played a retired prison warden who goes on a soul-searching trip with a postcard that arrived after his wife's death.
According to a fax released by his office, Takakura was preparing for his next project while in hospital.
Additional reporting by agencies
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