That Actor Whose Name You Don’t Know: Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa

Some individuals can’t help but look sinister or frightening due to the way they appear on a normal basis, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is one of those that often plays the part of a villain and can rock it, unlike many others. There are roles that don’t really come across as the best since he might not have been the right guy even if he was selected for one reason or another, but a lot of the time his casting is spot on since he needs to be someone that’s simply evil and look the part. Togawa got his start back in the mid-80s and has been on his way up for a while with small roles and bit parts in quite a few movies over the years that have been well-known or have kind of slipped under the mainstream. He did have a part in Big Trouble in Little China, but it was a role as a Wing Kong swordsman and he wasn’t credited for it. But the fact that he started off in such a great movie, even if some people want to call it playing to stereotype, is impressive enough. The fact that he looked the part, enough to the point that he was deemed worthy of being used for the movie, should be enough to satisfy pretty much anyone, but oh well. His career only started to improve after that as he’s been showing up here and there over the years in a way that’s been less than momentous, but has still been easy to recognize since he has a very distinctive look that helps him to stand out in an industry where faces come and go.

One of the more confusing roles that he took on was that of Heihachi Mishima in the two Tekken movies that have been created and made their way to video not long after being finished. One thing about the character of Heihachi, which a lot of Tekken lovers have enjoyed for a long time thanks in part to his insane combos in the game, is that he’s a pretty muscular guy that has a hulking presence that’s hard to miss. Togawa definitely isn’t a whip-thin individual, but he’s also not such a big guy that putting him in this role made sense. All the same, the first Tekken was kind of ridiculous and took a lot of effort to really get into since the story was a bit tough to process. All the same, it wasn’t the worst since there was plenty of action. There was a second movie, but this went largely unnoticed as one might have guessed since the first one wasn’t exactly a huge hit. Part of that can be attributed to the fact that it is a movie based on a video game which is an iffy prospect to this day, but the other part is likely that it just didn’t come together the way it needed to. It also didn’t feel like the right part for Togawa, but he gave it everything he had, which was admirable at least.

One role that he nailed fairly well but still felt slightly overdone was that of Shang Tsung from the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie. This version was widely accepted by the fans since it was new, it was all we had apart from the games, and it brought the original characters into the mix, which was what people were hoping to see. Shang Tsung was an imposing figure at the time, someone whose word was meant to be followed, and someone that was downright sinister as he should have been. It was even kind of nice to see that he didn’t enter the fight until it came down to the final battle between himself and Liu Kang. At that point though things still became a little weird since he summoned several warriors to fight for him before finally taking on Liu on his own. He did end up getting killed at the end of the fight when Liu struck him hard enough to knock Shang off of the balcony they’d been fighting on and into the spikes that had appeared below, another element of the game that was used to appease the fans. In fact, Togawa’s likeness and voice were both used for Mortal Kombat 11. He’s had quite the career at this point since he’s starred in plenty of TV shows as well and been an impressive character that’s done more than enough to become a known individual in the business. One of his slightly less effective roles was still one that’s easy to remember since he played the Mysterious Asian Man in the movie Balls of Fury, a comedy starring Dan Fogler and Christopher Walken. No joke, that was his title in the credits, and instead of being offensive, it was pretty accurate since he was never given a name.