The best Tatsuya Nakadai’s action movies on Apple iTunes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Tatsuya Nakadai (仲代 達矢 Nakadai Tatsuya, born Motohisa Nakadai December 13, 1932) is a Japanese leading film actor. He became a star after he was discovered working as a Tokyo shop clerk by filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi during the early 1950s. He became the favorite leading man of internationally-acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa after a well publicized fallout between Kurosawa and the legendary Toshirō Mifune. Beginning in the late 1950s, he worked with a number of Japan's best-known filmmakers, starring or co-starring in five Kurosawa films, along with significant films made by Hiroshi Teshigahara (The Face of Another), Mikio Naruse (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs), Kihachi Okamoto (Kill! and Sword of Doom), Hideo Gosha (Goyokin), Shiro Toyoda (Portrait of Hell) and Kon Ichikawa (Enjo and Odd Obsession). Notably, his long-term collaboration with Masaki Kobayashi invites comparison to the working relationship between Akira Kurosawa and Toshirō Mifune. Nakadai was featured in 11 Kobayashi films including the The Human Condition trilogy, Harakiri, Samurai Rebellion and Kwaidan. The Thick-Walled Room marked Nakadai's acting debut. His next role was a little noticed and uncredited one in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai where he appears for a few seconds as a samurai wandering about town.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Tatsuya Nakadai, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Seven Samurai
8.6/10
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Ran
8.2/10
With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.
Gun Woman
4.8/10
A brilliant doctor on a quest for revenge buys a young woman and trains her to be the ultimate assassin, implanting gun parts in her body that she must later assemble and use to kill her target before she bleeds to death.
Kagemusha
7.9/10
Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.
Harakiri
8.6/10
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
Sanjuro
8/10
Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed "Sanjuro." In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.
Kill!
7.4/10
A pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living anonymously with gangsters. But when both men discover the wrongdoings of the nefarious clan leader, they side with a band of rebels who are under siege at a remote mountain cabin.
Hunter in the Dark
7/10
Yataro Tanigawa, a one-eyed hired assassin, impresses yakuza boss Gomyo Kiyoemon with his skill. Gomyo hires Tanigawa as his bodyguard, or yojimbo, to protect him during an inter-clan conflict. Tanigawa quickly rises in stature in the clan, but finds his boss's enemies almost overwhelming.
Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival
7.3/10
Zatoichi is mentored by the blind leader of a secret organization as he contends with both the Yakuza and a jealous husband.
