was a Japanese actor. He received the

Kinema Junpo Award , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ...

for Best Actor and the

Mainichi Film Concours The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

for Best Actor for his performance in '' Fires on the Plain''.

Biography

Born Eijirō Funakoshi on 17 March 1923, in Tokyo, Eiji Funakoshi signed up for the

Daiei Motion Picture Company Daiei Film Co. Ltd. (Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ''Daiei Eiga Kabushiki Kaisha'') was a Japanese film studio. Founded in 1942 as Dai Nippon Film Co., Ltd., it was one of the major studios during the postwar Golden Age of Japanese cinema, producing n ...

in 1947 and made his acting debut the following year with ''Beautiful Enemy''. In a career that spanned three decades Funakoshi starred in a variety of genres and worked for directors

Kōzaburō Yoshimura was a Japanese film director. Biography Born in Shiga Prefecture, he joined the Shōchiku studio in 1929. He debuted as director in 1934, but continued working as an assistant director for such filmmakers as Yasujirō Ozu and Yasujirō Shim ...

Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily shomin-geki ("common people drama") films with female protagonists, ...

Kon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) and '' Fires on the Plain'' (1959), to the documentary '' Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), which won ...

and

Yasuzo Masumura was a Japanese film director. Biography Masumura was born in Kōfu, Yamanashi. After dropping out of a law course at the University of Tokyo he worked as an assistant director at the Daiei Film studio, later returning to university to study ph ...

.SciFi Japan » Eiji Funakoshi: 1923–2007
/ref> Funakoshi was a favorite actor of internationally renowned director

. Perhaps their most notable film was the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

drama '' Fires on the Plain'' (Nobi, 1959). Funakoshi played the lead role of Imperial Army Private Tamura, a soldier stationed on

Leyte Island Leyte ( ) is an island in the Visayas group of islands in the Philippines. It is eighth-largest and sixth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 2,626,970 as of 2020 census. Since the accessibility of land has be ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. '' Fires on the Plain'' won awards in Japan and overseas, including prizes for

from the Blue Ribbon in Japan and the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. For several years, Funakoshi portrayed Tanokura Magobei, a close associate of the shogun, on ''

Abarenbō Shōgun (Abarenbō Shōgun) was a Japanese television program on the TV Asahi network. Set in the eighteenth century, it showed fictitious events in the life of Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa ''shōgun''. The program started in 1978 under the title '' ...

.'' His son

Eiichirō Funakoshi is a Japanese actor, ''tarento'', and presenter. He is represented with Horipro. He graduated from Nihon University Mishima High School and Nihon University College of Arts Film Department (in which he was classmates with Hiroyuki Sanada). His ...

is also a famous actor in Japan. Eiji Funakoshi died of a stroke on 17 March 2007, his 84th birthday.

Filmography

Honours

Medal with Purple Ribbon are medals awarded by the Government of Japan. They are awarded to individuals who have done meritorious deeds and also to those who have achieved excellence in their field of work. The Medals of Honor were established on December 7, 1881, and we ...

(1989) * Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette (1995)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Funakoshi, Eiji 1923 births 2007 deaths Japanese male actors Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th class