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By Richard Corliss
Posted Monday, October 3, 2005; 21:00 HKT
Majesty is a quality in short supply in movies, or anywhere. So it was easy to spot when Ken Watanabe strode into the 2003 Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai. Watanabe's regal posture, his severe good looks, the appraising glint of his stare, all expressed an aristocracy of machismo. Here was a 19th century Japanese man of honor, and just the 21st century Japanese actor to embody it.
Gravitas may come naturally to a man stricken, as he was, by leukemia at the age of 29. "An awareness of death is something everyone experiences," he says, "but I went through it at a much younger age than most." Then there's all that practice he had, playing noble samurai, mostly in TV dramas. "Perhaps I possess some natural trait, but there are also skills and mannerisms that I've learned by taking on period roles."
In December Watanabe will be seen as the Chairman in Rob Marshall's movie of the international best seller, Memoirs of a Geisha—another protective power figure, another meaty part in a Hollywood mega-film. When he landed the Last Samurai role, he wanted to "make the Japanese proud." This time he concentrated on translating the director's vision. "I didn't go in thinking that I was filming a Japanese story," he says. "I went in knowing this was Rob Marshall's world."
Surely it's time for this charismatic character actor to star in a movie, which he is doing—finally!—in Memories of Tomorrow, about a salaryman who develops early Alzheimer's disease. This Japanese film may have a small budget, but, Watanabe notes, "My contributions as an actor to a $1.5 million film or a $150 million film are about the same."
At 45, Watanabe has arrived. As much as any politician or author, he is now the face of Japan to the rest of the world. It's a face any nation could be proud of.
—Reported by Toko Sekiguchi/Tokyo
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