RIP, Tatsuya Nakadai

Japanese film legend Tatsuya Nakadai died earlier this month at age 92. "Film legend" probably doesn't do him justice. He has, arguably, the greatest actor's filmography of all time, of anyone anywhere. He's in the conversation, anyway. And acting in movies wasn't even his greatest passion. According to his obituary in Variety, "Nakadai considered himself to be a theater actor first, and the most acclaimed work of his later years came onstage, leading productions of 'Death of a Salesman,' 'Barrymore' and 'Don Quixote.' He played Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Richard III throughout his career."

Nakadai essentially played Shakespeare's King Lear, too. In the West, he is perhaps most well-known for the role of elderly warlord Ichimonji Hidetora in Akira Kurosawa's 1985 masterpiece Ran, which is a retelling of "King Lear." Nakadai was only 52 when he performed the role, and in my opinion should have been nominated for an Oscar.

The author Japanonfilm wrote this of Nakadai in 2021: 

"It is striking how often Nakadai was cast in critical roles by the very best Japanese directors of his time – not even [Toshiro] Mifune made so many great movies. ... Directors felt Nakadai was a star, even if the Japanese audiences didn’t. Nakadai was the lodestone of all Kobayashi’s great films, but he also was consistently cast by Kurosawa, Okamoto, Gosha, and Ichikawa, and the results were usually among the directors’ finest work. ... Though Mifune is the giant who made Japanese movies popular in the rest of the world and the unchallengable king of film charisma, Nakadai is the genuinely great actor of his era, arguably the greatest in the history of Japanese film."

Another essay about Nakadai that I recommend is this 2009 piece by Chuck Stephens on the Criterion.com website.

Here's a list of some of Nakadai's greatest films. I'm looking to make up for some serious oversights by watching High and Low and Harakiri in the coming days. Also hope to track a few more of these down for future viewing.

• Seven Samurai (1954) small, uncredited role; but he was there 
• The Human Condition trilogy (1959, 1959, 1961)
• When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)
• Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960)
• Immortal Love (aka Bitter Spirit) (1961)
• Yojimbo (1961)
• Sanjuro (1962)
• Love Under the Crucifix (1962)
• The Inheritance (1962)
• Harakiri (1962)
• High and Low (1963)
• Kwaidan (1964)
• The Sword of Doom (1966)
• The Face of Another (1966)
• Samurai Rebellion (1967)
• Goyokin (1969)
• Portrait of Hell (1969)
• Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970)
• Inn of Evil (1971)
• The Wolves (1971)
• The Human Revolution (1973)
• I Am a Cat (1975)
• Kagemusha (1980)
• The Battle of Port Arthur (1980)
• Ran (1985)
• After the Rain (1999)
• Lear on the Shore (2017)

The actors Peter (playing King Lear's Fool) and Tatsuya Nakadai in Ran (1985).