Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who died this week at age 75, will perhaps best be remembered for his role as evil shape-shifting sorcerer Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat franchise. It’s just one of many memorable, villainous characters Tagawa embodied over the course of his nearly 40-year career, but — as evidenced by his 150-plus acting credits across film, TV, and video games — he was more than your average onscreen bad guy.
The Tokyo-born actor and martial artist got his start with an uncredited part in director John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. That performance in the 1986 cult classic quickly led to roles in movies like The Last Emperor, License to Kill, Showdown in Little Tokyo, and Rising Sun. After making his mark as Shang Tsung in the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie — a role he’d reprise in a sequel, a spin-off series, and two video games — he went on to appear in Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, Elektra, Memoirs of a Geisha (more on that below), and The Man in the High Castle. Despite these darker onscreen turns, Tagawa didn’t shy away from lighter fare: He starred as an alien warrior monk in Space Rangers, a fun-loving grandfather in Johnny Tsunami, and an upbeat puppeteer in Kubo and the Two Strings, which you can learn about below. Keep reading for more insight into his performances — including his turns as a shipwrecked entomologist and a wise master of the sword.
This film, adapted from author Arthur Golden’s 1997 novel, is directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago) and tells the story of a girl, Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), who’s sold by her destitute family to a geisha house in 1920s Japan. While there, she’s regularly mistreated, enduring training until she’s deemed worthy of serving the house’s clientele: men who pay for her company and to watch her sing and dance. Zhang Ziyi (The Cloverfield Paradox) plays the grown Chiyo, renamed Sayuri, who has become incredibly successful — just as World War II begins. Tagawa plays one of the geisha house’s clients, The Baron.
The movie, which also stars Michelle Yeoh (The Brothers Sun), Gong Li (Curse of the Golden Flower), and Ken Watanabe (Alice in Borderland), was produced by Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan) and won three Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design.
This stop-motion animated fantasy, directed by Travis Knight, stars Art Parkinson (Game of Thrones) as the voice of Kubo, a 12-year-old boy who wields a magical shamisen, a three-stringed musical instrument. He and his companions — reincarnations of his mother (Charlize Theron) and father (Matthew McConaughey) — journey to defeat his evil twin aunts (both voiced by Rooney Mara) and retrieve his left eye from his grandfather, the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes), who stole it when he was a baby. Tagawa voices a villager, Hashi, who entertains the locals with a dragon puppet during a quiet moment.
Husband-and-wife duo Michael Green (Logan) and Amber Noizumi co-created this animated action series about Mizu (Maya Erskine), a half-white, half-Japanese warrior who disguises herself as a man during Japan’s Edo period in order to better seek revenge on four white men — including her father — for their crimes. Mizu is raised by her “Swordfather,” Master Eiji (Tagawa), a master of the sword and the first person to ever show her kindness. George Takei (Star Trek), Masi Oka (Heroes), Darren Barnet (Never Have I Ever), Randall Park (Always Be My Maybe), and Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express) co-star.
Tagawa stars in the first season of Lost in Space as Hiroki Watanabe, an entomologist who’s traveling aboard a spaceship with his daughter, Naoko (Yukari Komatsu), and granddaughter, Aiko (Kiki Sukezane). That spaceship — which is transporting colonists to a new planetary system after an impact event threatens humanity’s survival — veers wildly off course, putting its passengers in danger. Molly Parker (Deadwood), Toby Stephens (Black Sails), Maxwell Jenkins (Arcadian), Taylor Russell (Bones and All), and Mina Sundwall (The Graduates) co-star as the Robinsons, the family at the center of this three-season series, based on the 1965 sci-fi classic of the same name.
