Japanese ‘Ran’ actor Tatsuya Nakadai dies at 92

Japanese stage and film actor Tatsuya Nakadai, who starred in a string of Akira Kurosawa classics, including the lead role in Ran, has died at the age of 92, his acting school announced on Tuesday.

Nakadai first rose to fame in Japan and internationally under director Masaki Kobayashi, who cast him in his epic anti-war trilogy The Human Condition in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

His acting school, Mumeijuku, did not disclose when Nakadai died or provide further details.

Nakadai had a walk-on role in Kurosawa’s 1954 classic Seven Samurai, but later effectively replaced Toshiro Mifune as the famed director’s leading man after Mifune went his own way.

He played the main protagonist in Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980), which won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Nakadai also portrayed the doomed warlord who divides his kingdom among his sons in Ran (1985), Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

In addition to his work with Kurosawa, Nakadai appeared in Yojimbo (1961) — alongside Mifune — and collaborated with other notable directors, including Hiroshi Teshigahara and Kon Ichikawa.

He founded Mumeijuku, a private acting school and troupe, in 1975 together with his late wife, actress Yasuko Miyazaki, to train and mentor young performers.

One of his former students, Koji Yakusho, won Best Actor at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival for his role in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days.

Nakadai continued performing until recently, appearing this year at a theatre in the Noto region, which was still recovering from a deadly earthquake that struck on New Year’s Day last year.

AFP