Tatsuya Nakadai: A farewell to the last great samurai of Japanese cinema

With profound sorrow and deep reverence, we mark the passing of Tatsuya Nakadai, the towering figure of Japanese cinema who left us at the age of 92. His death is not merely the loss of an actor but the fading of a singular presence whose artistry helped redefine what cinematic performance could be.

Nakadai’s trajectory in world cinema is one of transcendent transformation. Discovered in Tokyo and beginning his journey with no grand pedigree, he rose through raw talent and an astonishing capacity for metamorphosis. What he achieved over more than seven decades — over 160 films and innumerable stage appearances — is not simply prolific. It is profound.

In Harakiri (1962), under the direction of Masaki Kobayashi, Nakadai plays the rōnin Hanshiro Tsugumo. The film is a savage, exacting critique of samurai honour and feudal hypocrisy, and Nakadai’s performance sits at its centre with a stillness and an explosion. His face is sometimes as expressionless as a gravestone while on other occasions his single expression seems worth a thousand words. Here was an actor capable of living in silence and raging in understatement simultaneously.

Fast forward to Ran (1985), the late masterpiece of Akira Kurosawa, and Nakadai is Lord Hidetora, a berserker warlord undone by time and his own hubris. The visuals alone are iconic; the decades of violence and regret in Nakadai’s eyes are unforgettable. Nakadai as Hidetora gives a performance of a lifetime: the abysmal decline of Hidetora into delirium is highly reminiscent of Kurosawa’s own slump as a moviemaker. In this performance he becomes not only a ruler collapsing, but humanity exposed.

The great “second choice” turned major presence — for years, Nakadai was often regarded as the alternative to the towering star Toshiro Mifune in Kurosawa’s casting. Yet Nakadai’s path was never derivative — he carved his own valley. He worked tirelessly with directors like Kobayashi, Kurosawa, and many others to forge performances that ranged from the serene to the savage. His films such as Kagemusha and Ran would see him ascend to the very pinnacle of Japanese cinema and global recognition.

Beyond his iconic roles, what Nakadai brought was a willingness to engage with characters’ contradictions. He could embody the samurai’s dignity and its decay, the warrior’s fire and its existential tedium. His collaborations with Kobayashi in Harakiri and the Human Condition trilogy (which spotlighted the brutal ironies of war and humanity) show a moral seriousness that few actors sustain over decades.

To watch a Nakadai film is to feel the weight of the moment. In the white-pebbled courtyard of Harakiri, his quiet revenge plays out. In the burning castle of Ran, Hidetora staggers down the steps, and Nakadai carries a world of anguish in his posture. These are not just snapshots of acting excellence; they are imprints of a human voice through the camera.

In his later years, Nakadai helped shape new generations of actors through his troupe and teaching, ensuring that the craft would be passed on.

In this age of churn and spectacle, Nakadai’s work stands as a reminder: performance is not just presence. It is transformation, clarity of intention, and the courage to descend so one may ascend. He remained ever-malleable, ever-present, never complacent (Chris Marker’s documentary A.K. is a great way to understand and appreciate Nakadai’s great patience as an actor). With his passing, we lose not only a master actor but also a bridge between eras of cinema — a link from the black-and-white samurai epic to the colour horizontals of modernity.

So we bow, quietly, before Nakadai’s artistry. His voice may be silent now, but the echo of his work remains — in every nuance of stillness, in every flash of rage, in every frame where the human face becomes a battlefield. The screens will flicker, the years will pass, but when we revisit Harakiri, Ran, Kagemusha, The Human Condition, The Sword of Doom, The Face of Another and so many more, we will meet him again.

Rest in power, Tatsuya Nakadai. Your sword may have sheathed, but its arc remains etched in film history for eternity.

(The author is an Indian critic and journalist who has been covering cinema, art and culture for the last decade and a half. He has served on the jury of various film festivals, including the National Film Awards. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)