Bunta Sugawara
Bunta Sugawara ( Japanese 菅原 文 太 Sugawara Bunta ; born August 16, 1933 in Sendai , Miyagi Prefecture ; † November 28, 2014 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese actor and voice actor who appeared in almost 200 feature films. He played mostly in yakuza and gangster films. His eldest son Sugawara Kaoru was also an actor; Kaoru died in October 2001 in a railway accident.
Career
Bunta Sugawara was born in Sendai in 1933 as the son of the Yōga painter and poet Jirō Hazama. When he was four years old, his parents divorced and he moved to Tokyo to live with his father and stepmother. After leaving school, he began studying law, but had to finish it in his sophomore year and began working as a model in 1956.
He played his first small role in 1956 in the Toho film Aishū no Machi ni Kiri ga Furu ( 哀愁 の 街 に 霧 が 降 る , In the Town of Pathos, the Fog Falls). Sugawara appeared in Teruo Ishii's White Line in 1958 after being discovered by Shintoho Studios. In Shintoho he also got leading roles, although he was actually a beginner. However, when Shintōhō filed for bankruptcy in 1961, Sugawara went to Shochiku Studios, where he was cast in Masahiro Shinoda's Shamisen and Motorcycle , but lost the role when he was drunk and late on set.
On a recommendation from Noboru Ando, he moved to the Tōei studios in 1967 . Sugawara's first leading role in Toei was in Gendai Yakuza: Yotamono no Okite (Modern Yakuza-Outlaw's Code) from 1969, a six-part series of which Kinji Fukasaku's Street Mobster (1972) was the most successful. He had his greatest success at the age of 40 when he appeared in Fukasaku's five-part yakuza epic "Battles Without Honor and Humanity". Based on a real yakuza conflict in Hiroshima, the series became very successful. The role of Shōzō Hirono is still his best known. Sugawara also played in Fukasaku's Cops vs. Thugs (1975) with. Also in 1975 he played in the comedy Torakku Yarō: Go-Iken Muyō a love-seeking truck driver, a ten-episode series. Sugawara won the Japan Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1980 for his role as detective in Kazuhiko Hasegawa's satirical film Taiyō o Nusunda Otoko .
Private
On February 23, 2012, Sugawara announced his retirement as an actor.
On December 1, 2014, it was announced that Sugawara had died of liver cancer on November 28, 2014 in a hospital in Tokyo.
Filmography (selection)
- 1964: Girls in the shade
- 1968: Wicked Priest
- 1968: A Lively Geisha
- 1968: Wicked Priest 2: Ballad of Murder
- 1968: Modern Yakuza 1: Law of the Shameless
- 1969: Yakuza's Law
- 1969: Memoir of Japanese Assassins
- 1969: Wicked Priest: Pilgrimage of Death
- 1969: Outlaw Corps
- 1970: Wicked Priest: Comes Back
- 1970: Whipmaster: Ballad of Murder
- 1972: Red Silk Gambler
- 1972: Outlaw Killers: Three Mad Dog Brothers
- 1973: Battles Without Honor and Humanity
- 1974: New Battles Without Honor and Humanity
- 1977: The Tattooed Hit Man
- 1981: The Gate of Youth
- 1982: A kidnapper is hunted down
- 1990: The horror of the mountains
- 1990: Tekken
- 1992: Distant Justice - The right of the fittest
- 2005: War of the Demons
Web links
- Bunta Sugawara in the Internet Movie Database (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sugawara, Bunta |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 菅 原文 太 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 16, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sendai , Miyagi Prefecture |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 28, 2014 |
| Place of death | Tokyo |