The best Ken Watanabe’s drama movies
Ken Watanabe (born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. To English-speaking audiences he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Among other awards, he has won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Actor twice, in 2007 for Memories of Tomorrow and in 2010 for Shizumanu Taiyō. He is also known for his roles in director Christopher Nolan's Hollywood blockbusters Batman Begins and Inception.
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Batman Begins
8.2/10
Driven by tragedy, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to uncovering and defeating the corruption that plagues his home, Gotham City. Unable to work within the system, he instead creates a new identity, a symbol of fear for the criminal underworld - The Batman.
Godzilla
6.4/10
Ford Brody, a Navy bomb expert, has just reunited with his family in San Francisco when he is forced to go to Japan to help his estranged father, Joe. Soon, both men are swept up in an escalating crisis when an ancient alpha predator arises from the sea to combat malevolent adversaries that threaten the survival of humanity. The creatures leave colossal destruction in their wake, as they make their way toward their final battleground: San Francisco.
The Last Samurai
7.8/10
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.
Memoirs of a Geisha
7.3/10
A sweeping romantic epic set in Japan in the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Letters from Iwo Jima
7.8/10
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Fukushima 50
6.1/10
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi facility in Japan risk their lives and stay at the nuclear power plant to prevent total destruction after the region is devastated by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
The Sea of Trees
6.1/10
Numbed by grief, Arthur Brennan heads across the world to Japan’s Aokigahara, a mysterious forest lapping the foothills of Mount Fuji — a place where people go to contemplate life and death. Having found the perfect place to die, Arthur encounters a Japanese man, Takumi Nakamura, who appears to have lost his way. Together, the two men embark on a journey of reflection and survival.
Bel Canto
5.5/10
A famous opera singer is held hostage in South America by a guerrilla rebel group after performing at a Japanese businessman's lavish birthday party. Unexpected bonds are forged in the standoff that ensues.
Shanghai
6.3/10
An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.
Rage
7/10
A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees. At three different locations in Japan, a male stranger appears. People suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.
Unforgiven
7/10
Set in Hokkaido, Japan in the 1880s. Jubei Kamata (Ken Watanabe), who is on the side of the Edo shogunate government, kills many people. His name is infamous in Kyoto. When the battle at Goryoukaku is about to be finished, Jubei disappears. 10 years later, Jubei lives with his kid in relative peace. He is barely able to make a living. Protecting his dead wife's grave, Jubei has decided to never pick up a sword again, but due to poverty he has no choice but to pick the sword again. Jubei becomes a bounty hunter.
Kensuke's Kingdom
7/10
A young boy Michael is taken by his family on a round-the-world sailing trip. But when a storm strikes, Michael and his dog Stella are swept overboard and washed up on a remote island. They struggle to survive, but one day Michael wakes to find fresh fish and coconut milk by his cave. He discovers his mysterious benefactor is Kensuke, a former Japanese soldier, creator of a treetop kingdom and protector of the orangutans. Slowly, communicating through drawings rather than words, Michael and Kensuke form a friendship. But something threatens to destroy the fragile world Kensuke has created. A thrilling adventure story with a poignant message that will resonate with audiences across the world.
The Unbroken
6.7/10
A drama based on the 1985 plane crash that caused 520 deaths, the worst aviation event in Japanese history.
The Sea and Poison
7.5/10
Downed American fliers in WW II are vivisected by Japanese surgeons in medical experiments.
Ashes and Snow
8/10
Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.
Memories of Tomorrow
7.5/10
After being stricken with Alzheimer's disease in the prime of his life, a successful young businessman slips slowly away from his loving family.
Bonds
6.7/10
Tetsuro Haga is a troubled gangster, living under the assumed identity Ise for ten years, to escape jail for gunning down his cruel adoptive father. His life begins to unravel when a journalist following him takes an interest in the wife of a boyhood chum, and the wife of another close friend takes an interest in Ise. A couple of murders later, Ise/Haga goes on the run and also sets out for revenge.
The King and I
8/10
The multi-award winning and critically acclaimed Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King And I comes to cinemas in this unmissable event recorded live from London’s iconic Palladium.
Drowning Fish
6.3/10
When corporate executives are blackmailed into public displays of nudity on the busy streets of Shinjuku, the big guns are called out to locate "Oboreru Sakana". The "big guns" are a misfit duo of ethically questionable characters who must infiltrate a gay nightclub and "fit in" while they search for clues. What ensues is both hilarious and action-packed. Oboreru Sakana is a rather ambitious and often hilarious contemporary crime thriller. Its narrative swings from the grisly to the humorous and pulls in as many pop culture elements as it can manage.
Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home
5.4/10
In May 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (or JAXA) launched an unmanned spacecraft of their own development to retrieve samples from an asteroid. Seven long years later, Hayabusa achieved its goal and was the first of any kind of craft launched from Earth to safely return samples of this kind to home base. The story was one of such great national pride for Japan, and in the wake of the tsunami and resulting tragedies in Japan it’s strong nationalistic message became the subject of no less than three rival films. Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s high-profile effort, simply titled Hayabusa (2011) starred the incomparable Toshiyuki Nishida. Most recently, Welcome Home, Hayabusa (2012) was released to Japanese audiences. Slipping in between those two was Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home, concentrating on the people on the ground who helped return the probe safely.
