While he is still largely unknown to mainstream American audiences, Asano Tadanobu is a major player in Japanese cinema.  Being a fantastic actor and having appeared in 60 films to date (and he’s only 37!), it is surprising Tadanobu hasn’t crossed over to the American scene sooner. In 1997 he won the Most Popular Performer Award at the Japanese Academy Awards.  He’s also been called a Japanese James Dean.  He’s so popular in fact, that a company called Toys McCoy even put out an action figure in his likeness.  Click here and scroll down to check that out.  It’s only like $800. to purchase! 

One of his more memorable roles include the Joker-esque Kakihara from the ultra violent Japanese horror Ichi the Killer which was directed by Takashi Miike, the same guy who brought us that creepy horror film Audition.

Trailer for Ichi the Killer

Tadanobu has also played a reluctant yakuza in the Thai romance Last Life in the Universe (one of my personal favorites), Genghis Khan in Sergei Bodrov’s Oscar-nominated historical epic Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan,

a zombie wrestler in the comedy Tokyo Zombies, a rival samurai inThe Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, and a bank robber who fell in love with one of his hostages (where have I heard that premise before?) in the 1998 comedy Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl.

In May, mainstream America will finally catch a glimpse of what the actor can do as he will be appearing in Thor as one of the Warriors Three, Hogun the Grim.  Right now he’s filming the Peter Berg directed Battleship (yep, based on the board game) with Liam Neeson, Rihanna and True Blood’s Aleksander Skarsgard, and he has another in pre-production where he will be appearing opposite Asia Argento and Brady Corbet (Mysterious Skin) in a film called The Regular Boy.  It looks like Hollywood has finally embraced Asano Tadanobu.  Hopefully soon he’ll get to the point in his career where he can be as selective about the English language films he makes as he has been about all his others.

[Source:  IMDB]

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