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Yakusho Koji on 'Perfect Days,' 'Shall We Dance?' and Japanese Cinema
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Yakusho Koji on 'Perfect Days,' 'Shall We Dance?' and Japanese Cinema

Variety·Naman Ramachandran·about 1 month ago
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When Nakadai Tatsuya, one of Japan’s most celebrated actors, decided that his young student’s surname was too dull for the stage, he reached for an unlikely inspiration. Hashimoto Koji — as the actor was called then — had been working at a Tokyo municipal office before auditioning for Nakadai’s acting school. The word for such an office in Japanese is yakusho. The stage name followed naturally, carrying with it a wish: that this unknown clerk’s range of roles would one day be as wide as possible. Forty-eight years later, Yakusho Koji arrived in Udine to collect the Golden Mulberry Award for lifetime achievement at the Far East Film Festival — presented by Wim Wenders , no less — and the name has more than fulfilled its promise. Popular on Variety For Yakusho, the award carries a specific weight. “It’s like if I was a horse in a horse race — it’s like somebody is giving me the last whip of love,” he told Variety .…

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