was a Japanese actor. He received the Kinema Junpo Award for Best Actor and the Mainichi Film Concours 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 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 with a short film in 1934, but, after being denied a promotion by head of the studio Shirō Kido, continued working ...

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 Shoshimin-eiga, shōshimin-eiga ("common people drama") films with f ...

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 t ...

and Yasuzo Masumura.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 (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

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

from the Blue Ribbon in Japan and the

Locarno Film Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

in Switzerland. For several years, Funakoshi portrayed Tanokura Magobei, a close associate of the shogun, on '' Abarenbō Shōgun.'' His son Eiichirō Funakoshi 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 (1989) *

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese honors system, Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge feat ...

, 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