Having honed his craft at the Haiyuza Theatre Company before joining the Bungakuza troupe in 1959, he entered cinema with Kihachi Okamoto’s “Daigaku no sanzôkutachi” a year later and earned the Elan d’or Newcomer of the Year prize in 1961. Early collaborations with Akira Kurosawa placed him in “High and Low” (1963) and “Red Beard” (1965), and he returned for “Kagemusha” fifteen years afterward. Te…
