Actor: Takashi Shimura
Takashi Shimura appeared in twenty-one Kurosawa films, more than Mifune, and functioned as the quiet center against which Mifune’s energy registered.
Ikiru is the performance, playing a bureaucrat with terminal cancer trying to get a playground built, and the swing sequence in the snow is among the most famous images in Japanese cinema.
Seven Samurai gives him Kambei, the leader, whose authority is established in one scene involving a shaved head and a rice ball.
He was also in the original Godzilla as the scientist, which introduced him to a very different global audience, and worked constantly across five decades.
