Ken Takakura (高倉 健, Takakura Ken), born Gouichi Oda (February 16, 1931, in Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka, Japan), was a Japanese actor best known for his brooding style and the stoic presence he brings to his roles. Takakura gained his streetwise swagger and tough-guy persona watching yakuza turf battles over the lucrative black market and racketeering in postwar Fukuoka. This subject was covered in one of his most famous movies, Showa Zankyo-den (Remnants of Chivalry in the Showa Era), in which he played...
Ken Takakura (高倉 健, Takakura Ken), born Gouichi Oda (February 16, 1931, in Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka, Japan), was a Japanese actor best known for his brooding style and the stoic presence he brings to his roles. Takakura gained his streetwise swagger and tough-guy persona watching yakuza turf battles over the lucrative black market and racketeering in postwar Fukuoka. This subject was covered in one of his most famous movies, Showa Zankyo-den (Remnants of Chivalry in the Showa Era), in which he played an honorable old-school yakuza among the violent post-war gurentai.
A graduate of Meiji University in Tokyo Takakura happened by an audition in 1955 at the Toei Film Company, and decided to look in. Toei found a natural in Takakura as he debuted with Denko Karate Uchi (Lightning Karate Blow) in 1956. Japan experienced a boom in gangster films in the 1960s as the Japanese people struggled with the generational differences between those raised in pre-war and post-war Japan and these were Takakura's stock and trade. His breakout role would be in the 1965 film Abashiri Prison, and its sequel Abashiri Bangaichi: Bokyohen (Abashiri Prison: Longing for Home, also 1965), in which he played an ex-con antihero. By the time Takakura would leave Toei in 1976, he had appeared in over 180 films.
Takakura gained international recognition after starring in the 1970 war film Too Late the Hero as the cunning Imperial Japanese Major Yamaguchi, the 1975 Sydney Pollack sleeper hit The Yakuza with Robert Mitchum and is probably best known in the West for his role in Ridley Scott's Black Rain (1989) where he surprises American cops played by Michael Douglas and Andy García with the line, "I do speak fucking English". He again proved himself bankable to Western audiences with the 1992 Fred Schepisi comedy Mr. Baseball starring Tom Selleck.
While he has slowed down a bit in his older years, he is still active. His most recent film was the 2005 Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles by Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
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Movies (Cast)
Four Hours of Terror
The Yakuza
Mr. Baseball
A Fugitive from the Past
Railroad Man
Black Rain
The Bullet Train
Choji Snack Bar
The Revolt
Demon
Antarctica
47 Ronin
The International Gang of Kobe
Brutal Tales of Chivalry
Red Peony Gambler: Flower Cards Game
Memoir of Japanese Assassinations
New Prison Walls of Abashiri 2
Miyamoto Musashi: The Duel at Ichijo Temple
Miyamoto Musashi V: Musashi vs Kojiro
Miyamoto Musashi: Birth of Two Sword Style
The Yellow Handkerchief
Abashiri Prison
A Distant Cry from Spring
Mount Hakkoda
Wolves, Pigs & Men
New Prison Walls of Abashiri
Red Peony Gambler
Dearest
Never Give Up
Brutal Tales of Chivalry 7: Hell Is a Man's Destiny
Winter's Flower
Classmates
Buddies
Brothers Serving Time
Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza
Golgo 13
The Firefly
Great Jailbreak
The Domain: The Naniwa Story
Prison Walls of Abashiri 3
Brutal Tales of Chivalry 5: Man With The Karajishi Tattoo
Samurai Geisha
Patience Has An End
New Prison Walls of Abashiri: The Vagrant Comes to a Port Town