Born in Yokohama in 1973, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano hails from an artistic family, with his father, Yukihisa Satō, being an actors’ agent who encouraged his early foray into acting. His film debut came in 1990 with the movie Swimming Upstream, though his breakout role was in Shunji Iwai’s 1993 film Fried Dragon Fish. Thanks to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 1995 film Maboroshi no Hikari, he experienced his first major critical success on the international stage. Since then, Asano has collaborated with some of the most prominent and acclaimed directors in Japanese cinema, including Takeshi Kitano, Nagisa Ōshima, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, as well as international filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and Kenneth Branagh. Tadanobu’s versatility is evident in his diverse filmography, which includes samurai films like Gohatto (1999) and Zatoichi (2003), the critically acclaimed Bright Future (2003), and his portrayal of the young Genghis Khan in the Oscar-nominated Mongol (2007). He has also ventured into Hollywood, playing the role of Hogun in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Lord Raiden in the Mortal Kombat reboot (2021). Most recently, Asano gained additional recognition for his role as Lord Kashigi Yabushige in the FX limited series Shōgun (2024), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
