Asia Weekly

Japan Obituaries

Liver cancer claims Japanese actor

Award-winning Japanese actor Ken Ogata, who starred in a number of films for the acclaimed director Shohei Imamura, has died of liver cancer at 71, says Ben Child in The Guardian (UK). Ogata was active up until the end of his life, appearing at a press conference on September 30 to announce a new television drama, Kaze no Garden (Garden of Wind), notes Kyodo News.  In the series, which began airing last week, he plays an elderly doctor involved in end-of-life care. 

Born in Tokyo, Ogata joined the Shinkokugeki drama troupe in 1958, says Mark Schilling in Variety Asia Online. His performance as the warlord Hideyoshi in the 1965 period drama Taikoko gave him national exposure. But Ogata is perhaps best known internationally for his role in Imamura's The Ballad of Narayama (1983), in which he portrays a man who carries his aged mother up a mountain to die of exposure, following an age-old tradition, says Child. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and gained Ogata the Best Actor prize at Japan's version of the Academy Awards. Ogata also starred in Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) and Paul Schrader's TMishima: A Life in Four Chapterss (1985), about the controversial writer Yukio Mishima.

 

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