Ken Takakura Trailers
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Ken Takakura (高倉 健, Takakura Ken), born Gouichi Oda (February 16, 1931, in Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka, Japan), was a Japanese actor best known for his brooding style and the stoic presence he brings to his roles. Takakura gained his streetwise swagger and tough-guy persona watching yakuza turf battles over the lucrative black market and racketeering in postwar Fukuoka. This subject was covered in one of his most famous movies, Showa Zankyo-den (Remnants of Chivalry in the Showa Era), in which he played an honorable old-school yakuza among the violent post-war gurentai.
A graduate of Meiji University in Tokyo Takakura happened by an audition in 1955 at the Toei Film Company, and decided to look in. Toei found a natural in Takakura as he debuted with Denko Karate Uchi (Lightning Karate Blow) in 1956. Japan experienced a boom in gangster films in the 1960s as the Japanese people struggled with the generational differences between those raised in pre-war and post-war Japan and these were Takakura's stock and trade. His breakout role would be in the 1965 film Abashiri Prison, and its sequel Abashiri Bangaichi: Bokyohen (Abashiri Prison: Longing for Home, also 1965), in which he played an ex-con antihero. By the time Takakura would leave Toei in 1976, he had appeared in over 180 films.
Takakura gained international recognition after starring in the 1970 war film Too Late the Hero as the cunning Imperial Japanese Major Yamaguchi, the 1975 Sydney Pollack sleeper hit The Yakuza with Robert Mitchum and is probably best known in the West for his role in Ridley Scott's Black Rain (1989) where he surprises American cops played by Michael Douglas and Andy García with the line, "I do speak fucking English". He again proved himself bankable to Western audiences with the 1992 Fred Schepisi comedy Mr. Baseball starring Tom Selleck.
While he has slowed down a bit in his older years, he is still active. His most recent film was the 2005 Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles by Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
Most Popular Ken Takakura Trailers
Total trailers found: 195
30 September 1959
Airline captain saves passengers from a brutal murderer on a plane during four hours of terror.
01 May 1962
Yumemi, the president of Shirayuri Tours, visits Kagoshima in an attempt to save the contract with Satsuma Inn.
06 August 1958
A friendly rivalry turns into romance for Yukiko, an elite female detective, and a handsome private eye named Mitamura while both are investigating the missing person's case from a wealthy family.
22 September 1989
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan.
13 May 1959
A Dead Drifter / Hyoryû shitaî
19 April 1969
When Honjo is selected as Kansai district's chairman, Iwasa of the rival gang asks Itsuki to do everything possible to have Honjo step down, which puts Itsuki between a rock and a hard place.
21 October 1964
Many outlaws are gathered at the front line of the Japanese Army in a shock troop.
22 February 1968
The Domain: Severed Relations
12 August 1965
Third part of Nihon Kyokakuden series is set in Kanto in 1924. Ken Takakura playing a ship's mate befriending fish shop owners harassed by yakuza.
05 April 1975
A group of prisoners attempts to break the Abashiri prison. This film can be considered a sequel to the Abashiri Bangaichi series, written and directed by Ishii Teruo.
15 September 1967
The Domain: Where The Blade Enters
11 August 1973
A boy born in a poor village in Tokushima spends his days idly until a chance meeting sets him on the road to becoming boss of Japan's largest gang.
28 January 1967
The Domain: White Blade
03 December 1970
The Domain: Rising Dragon
30 April 1958
The love between young college students Toki and the handsome Takaga is tested when Takaya's parents, who despise Toki's family's geisha house business, intervenes in their relationship.
03 January 1958
A comical love story between two college students — Hitomi, a strong-willed girl, and Shogo, a handsome, earnest and poverty stricken man.
28 January 1959
Japanese family drama.
09 September 1962
A touching drama about a love triangle between a young architect, Koroku, and two women, Ranko and Teruko.
30 January 1965
Second film of Makino's Nihon Kyokakuden series set in Osaka's harbor. The series also known as "The Domain" Each a stand alone film in it's own, none are connected other than starring the famous Ken Takakura as the main Character.
24 August 1960
When the plague threatens a small town in Manchuria, a young doctor finds himself struggling to save the lives of his townspeople.
15 March 1960
One of the earliest of sukeban / girl boss type eiga
20 October 1963
A modern gang version of Chushingura, chronicling almost scene for scene the Brave 47 Ronin story, transposed from the Genroku Period to the Showa Era.
15 June 1958
"Masayoshi Ryanko" jumps into the den of the underworld swirling with smuggling and murder, and defeats the culprit with a heart-pounding pistol.
03 February 1966
The Domain: Kanda Festival Showdown
01 April 1972
A ruffian joins the ranks of the emperor’s guards.
04 April 1962
Mr. Mito, a former president of an instant food company, with two young men’s help, solves the quality problems and wins a big ramen contract with a large Chinese company.
17 September 1966
The life of entertainers in Asakusa’s pleasure quarters. An exciting yakuza story with superb action.
31 December 1965
A gripping tale of friendship set against the backdrop of Hokkaido. Shinichi sets out to earn a few honest dollars with which to bail a friend out of jail.
05 December 1956
Japanese drama film.
04 July 1970
A street vendor who eloped with his girlfriend and injured her brother loses her to illness, and now has to confront the brother and some dirty local yakuza.
28 August 1957
Hayata and his best friend Ushijima came to Tokyo to become champions. Hayata repeatedly sought to join Tamura's boxing club, but Tamura fell in love with Ushijima's punch.
05 July 1975
A Japanese bullet train is threatened with a bomb that will explode automatically if the train slows below 80 km/h, unless a ransom is paid.
21 December 1974
When George Tanner does business with high-ranking Yakuza Tono, Tono kidnaps his daughter, and George summons his old friend, private eye Harry Kilmer, to Japan to investigate.
30 July 1972
When Omuro Yahachi of the Omuro family is selected as Mutsumikai Soke's successor, the conflict between the Kitakyushu and Wakamatsu begins.
31 December 1966
Based on Ito Hajime's original story, this is the seventh installment in the "Bangaichi" series, adapted jointly by Kamba Fumio and Matsuda Hiroo, and directed by Ishii Teruo of "Kamba 101: Killing Bouncer" fame.
08 February 1964
In a village subsisting on its herring fishery, a one-eyed criminal named Jakoman terrorizes the inhabitants.
28 December 1968
Historical Yakuza gangster film set the early years of the Showa era.
23 April 1966
A number of recently released prisoners become involved in a racket with a rancher who is a rival to a neighboring landowner and wants to use the convicts to seize his ranch.
22 December 2005
Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital.
31 October 1965
Upon returning to his hometown of Nagasaki, recently released prisoner Tachibana Shinichi must rejoin the Asahi gang family in order to pay back a past debt.
15 January 1980
When a young soldier is killed while trying to prevent his younger sister, Kaoru, from being sold into a life of prostitution, his commander, Col.
16 October 1982
After a passenger ship sinks in 1954, Go Akutsu devises a life-saving project in the form of a tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait.
07 February 1962
A geisha helps a runaway who looks just like her.
10 August 1974
Based on Kazuo Taoka's autobiography, this film follows a Kobe gangster as he builds the small Yamaguchi-gumi into Japan's largest criminal clan.
01 October 1992
Jack Elliot, a one-time MVP for the New York Yankees is now on the down side of his baseball career. With a falling batting average, does he have one good year left and can the manager of the Chunichi Dragons, a Japanese Central baseball league find it in him?
25 October 1968
With his penultimate film, Uchida revisited one of his popular prewar titles, 1936’s Theatre of Life, an adaptation of Shiro Ozaki’s eponymous novel.
01 March 1960
Young geisha Kohana scrambles to realize her dream of bringing back her grandmother’s restaurant business.
05 June 1999
A railway stationmaster at a dying end-of-the-line village in Hokkaido is haunted by memories of his dead wife and daughter.
10 July 1965
Two convicts just released from prison find a green bauble filled with diamonds — and try to prove they didn't steal it.
29 March 1970
Ken Takakura stars as Ryoji one of the Aramasa family's loyal lieutenants whao takes the burden of his family being insulted by the Tanuma's family goons, by retaliating on his own.
07 November 1981
A detective goes out of his way to crack the case of a serial killer who specialises in murdering police officers.
20 May 1970
A WWII film set on a Pacific island. Japanese and allied forces occupy different parts of the island.
