Kōji Yakusho

Kōji Yakusho
Kōji Yakusho at the 10th Deauville Asian Film Festival in 2008.
Born	Kōji Hashimoto January 1, 1956 (1956-01-01) (age 56) Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Saeko Kawatsu (1982-present)

Kōji Yakusho (役所広司, Yakusho Kōji^?, born January 1, 1956) is a Japanese actor.

1 Biography
2 Filmography
3 References
4 External links

Biography

He was born Kōji Hashimoto (橋本広司, Hashimoto Kōji^?) in Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, the youngest of five brothers. After graduation from the Nagasaki Prefectural High School of Technology in 1974, he took employment at the Chiyoda municipal ward office (the Chiyoda-Ku Yakusho) in Tokyo, hence the screen name "Yakusho", a Japanese word meaning "public office." In 1976, he saw a production of Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths and was inspired, first to take in as many plays as possible, later to take part in as many plays as possible.

In the spring of 1978 he auditioned, and was one of four chosen out of 800 applicants to the Mumeijyuku acting studio. While at the school he met actress Saeko Kawatsu, whom he would marry in 1982. The couple's son was born in 1985.

In 1983, he landed the role of Oda Nobunaga in the year-long NHK drama Tokugawa Ieyasu and was catapulted to fame. He has also appeared in a TV version of Miyamoto Musashi from 1984-85. For several years, he played Kuji Shinnosuke (or "Sengoku"), one of the title characters in the jidaigeki Sambiki ga Kiru!.

Yakusho was given a special award for work in cinema by the Japanese Minister of Education, Science, Sports and Culture in 1988. Yakusho had four major successes in 1996-97: The Eel, A Lost Paradise, Shall We Dance?, and Bounce ko-Gals (kogal is Japanese slang for a subculture of high school girls). Lost Paradise was second at the Japanese box office only to Princess Mononoke; The Eel won the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.^[1] Shall We Dance? was a major hit in Japan that actually inspired a domestic dance craze and an American remake. Bounce ko-gals dealt with high school prostitution specifically, and money worship in general.

More recently, Yakusho has begun to find recognition with international audiences through his collaborations with Kiyoshi Kurosawa and roles in such films as Memoirs of a Geisha and Babel.

Filmography

Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1979	Hunter in the Dark	Kuwano
1979	The Last Game
1980	Twelve Months	Young soldier	Voice
1981	Willful Murder	Journalist
1982	Onimasa
	Eternal Monument	Otaka
	The Legend of Sayo	Hatsutaro
1985	Tampopo	Man in White Suit
1987	The Great Department Store Robbery	Cello player
1988	Another Way: D-Kikan Joho	Naoto Sekiya
1990	Under Aurora	Genzo Tamiya
1993	Gurenbana	Kenzo Nakada
1993	Drug Connection	Ryosuke Kano
1994	Osaka Gokudo Senso: Shinoidare	Ippei Yoshikawa
1995	Kamikaze Taxi	Kantake
1996	Shall We Dance?	Shohei Sugiyama
	Sleeping Man	Kamimura
	Shabu gokudo	Makabe
1997	A Lost Paradise	Shoichiro Kuki
	The Eel	Takuro Yamashita
	Bounce Ko Gals	Oshima
	Cure	Kenichi Takabe
1998	Bonds	Takaaki Ise/Tetsuro Haga
1998	Tadon to chikuwa	Kida
1999	License to Live	Fujimori	Asia Pacific Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor
	Charisma	Goro Yabuike
	Spellbound	Hiroshi Kitano
2000	Swing Man
	Dora-heita	Koheita Mochizuki, aka Dora-heita
	Eureka	Makoto Sawai
	Seance	Sato
2001	Kairo	Ship captain
2001	Warm Water Under a Red Bridge	Yosuke Sasano
2002	The Choice of Hercules	Atsuyuki Sassa
2003	Doppelganger	Michio Hayasaki
2003	Fireflies: River of Light	Mr. Takiguchi
2004	The Hunter and the Hunted	Detective Jin
	Tōkyō genpatsu	The Governor of Tokyo
	Lakeside Murder Case	Sunsuke Namiki
	University of Laughs	Mutsuo Sakisaka
2005	Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean	Masami Shin'ichi
2005	Memoirs of a Geisha	Nobu
2006	The Uchōten Hotel	Heikichi Shindo
	Babel	Yasujiro Wataya
	Retribution	Noboru Yoshioka
2007	I Just Didn't Do It	Masayoshi Arakawa
	Argentine Baba	Satoru Wakui
	Kokoro
	Silk	Hara Jubei
	Walking My Life	Yukihiro Fujiyama
2008	Paco and the Magical Book	Onuki
2008	Tokyo Sonata	The Robber
2009	Mt. Tsurugidake	Morisaku Furuta
	Gelatin Silver LOVE	Client
	Toad's Oil	Takuro Yazawa	Also director and writer
2010	13 Assassins	Shinzaemon Shimada	Nominated–Asian Film Award for Best Actor
2010	The Last Ronin	Magozaemon Senoo
2011	Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai	Kageyu Saito
2011	Rengo kantai shirei chōkan: Yamamoto Isoroku	Isoroku Yamamoto
2012	Waga Haha no Ki
2012	Kitsutsuki to Ame	Katsuhiko

References

^ "Festival de Cannes: The Eel". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4800/year/1997.html. Retrieved 2009-09-24.

External links

Awards

Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actor

Toshirō Mifune (1951) · Hisaya Morishige (1955) · Keiji Sada (1956) · Frankie Sakai (1957) · Ichikawa Raizō VIII (1958) · Hiroyuki Nagato (1959) · Rentaro Mikuni (1960) · Toshirō Mifune (1961) · Tatsuya Nakadai (1962) · Yorozuya Kinnosuke (1963) · Keiju Kobayashi (1964) · Toshirō Mifune (1965) · Hajime Hana (1966) · Bunta Sugawara (1975) · Tetsuya Watari (1976) · Ken Takakura (1977) · Ken Ogata (1978) · Tomisaburo Wakayama (1979) · Tatsuya Nakadai (1980) · Toshiyuki Nagashima (1981) · Kiyoshi Atsumi (1982) · Ken Ogata (1983) · Tsutomu Yamazaki (1984) · Kin'ya Kitaōji (1985) · Kunie Tanaka (1986) · Takanori Jinnai (1987) · Hajime Hana (1988) · Rentaro Mikuni (1989) · Yoshio Harada (1990) · Naoto Takenaka (1991) · Masahiro Motoki (1992) · Hiroyuki Sanada (1993) · Eiji Okuda (1994) · Hiroyuki Sanada (1995) · Kōji Yakusho (1996) · Kōji Yakusho (1997) · Takeshi Kitano (1998) · Ken Takakura (1999) · Yūji Oda (2000) · Mansai Nomura (2001) · Kōichi Satō (2002) · Toshiyuki Nishida (2003) · Akira Terao (2004) · Hiroyuki Sanada (2005) · Ken Watanabe (2006) · Ryō Kase (2007) · Masahiro Motoki (2008)

Japan Academy Prize for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Ken Takakura (1978) · Ken Ogata (1979) · Tomisaburo Wakayama (1980) · Ken Takakura (1981) · Ken Takakura (1982) · Mitsuru Hirata (1983) · Ken Ogata (1984) · Tsutomu Yamazaki (1985) · Minoru Chiaki (1986) · Ken Ogata (1987) · Tsutomu Yamazaki (1988) · Toshiyuki Nishida (1989) · Rentaro Mikuni (1990) · Ittoku Kishibe (1991) · Rentaro Mikuni (1992) · Masahiro Motoki (1993) · Toshiyuki Nishida (1994) · Kōichi Satō (1995) · Rentaro Mikuni (1996) · Kōji Yakusho (1997) · Kōji Yakusho (1998) · Akira Emoto (1999) · Ken Takakura (2000) · Akira Terao (2001) · Yōsuke Kubozuka (2002) · Hiroyuki Sanada (2003) · Kiichi Nakai (2004) · Akira Terao (2005) · Hidetaka Yoshioka (2006) · Ken Watanabe (2007) · Hidetaka Yoshioka (2008) · Masahiro Motoki (2009) · Ken Watanabe (2010)

Yokohama Film Festival Best Actor

Ken Ogata (1980) · Masato Furuoya (1981) · Toshiyuki Nagashima (1982) · Ruudo Uzaki (1983) · Yusaku Matsuda (1984) · Takeshi Kaga (1985) · Minori Terada (1986) · Kouichi Iwaki (1987) · Saburō Tokitō (1988) · Hiroyuki Sanada (1989) · Ryo Ishibashi (1990) · Masato Furuoya (1991) · Hidekazu Akai (1992) · Masahiro Motoki (1993) · Hiroyuki Sanada (1994) · Eiji Okuda (1995) · Etsushi Toyokawa (1996) · Kōji Yakusho / Tadanobu Asano (1997) · Yoshio Harada (1998) · Kiichi Nakai / Claude Maki (1999) · Ken Takakura (2000) · Tadanobu Asano (2001) · Yōsuke Kubozuka (2002) · Kyōzō Nagatsuka / Seiichi Tanabe (2003) · Satoshi Tsumabuki (2004) · Kōji Yakusho (2005) · Joe Odagiri (2006) · Teruyuki Kagawa (2007) · Ryō Kase (2008) · Kaoru Kobayashi (2009) · Masato Sakai (2010)

Persondata
Name	Yakusho, Kōji
Alternative names
Short description	Japanese actor
Date of birth	January 1, 1956
Place of birth	Isahaya, Nagasaki, Japan
Date of death
Place of death

Kōji Yakusho

Contents

Biography

Filmography

References

External links