(3 February 1943 – 1 January 2021) was a Japanese

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), l ...

Biography

He started acting at age 15 in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

, the capital of Japanese cinema. A specialist in film and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

jidaigeki is a genre of film, television, video game, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning " period dramas", they are most often set during the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—'' Portrait o ...

set in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, he most often played a

rōnin A ''rōnin'' ( ; ja, 浪人, , meaning 'drifter' or 'wanderer') was a samurai without a lord or master during the feudal period of Japan (1185–1868). A samurai became masterless upon the death of his master or after the loss of his master ...

, but in his hundreds of appearances he took nearly every role. His forte was '' kirareyaku'', the person who loses the sword fight. In addition, he appeared in modern dramas in roles such as

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest a ...

and

yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the ter ...

. The American film '' The Last Samurai'' brought him before an international audience in the role of the Silent Samurai. Fukumoto played a lead role for the first time in the film Uzumasa Limelight.

Death

Fukumoto died on 1 January 2021, at his home in Kyoto, due to

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

. He was 77 years old.

Filmography

Film

* '' Ninpō-chushingura'' (1965) * '' Battles Without Honor and Humanity'' (1973) * '' Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima'' (1973) * '' Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Proxy War'' (1973) * '' Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics'' (1974) * '' Gambling Den Heist'' (1975) * '' New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Head'' (1975) * '' New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss's Last Days'' (1976) * '' The Fall of Ako Castle'' (1978) * '' Nihon no Fixer'' (1979) * '' Sanada Yukimura no Bōryaku'' (1979) * '' Roaring Fire'' (1982) - Ikeda Hinoharu * '' Ninja Wars'' (1982) * '' Shogun's Shadow'' (1989) * ''

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity New Battles Without Honor and Humanity may refer to: *New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1974 film), ''New Battles Without Honor and Humanity'' (1974 film), a Japanese film directed by Kinji Fukasaku *New Battles Without Honor and Humanity (20 ...

'' (2000) * '' The Last Samurai'' (2003) * '' Chō Ninja Tai Inazuma!'' (2006) - Rōnin * '' Engine Sentai Go-onger: Boom Boom! Bang Bang! GekijōBang!!'' (2008) - Samurai * '' OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders'' (2011) - General Black * ''Uzumasa Limelight'' (2014, Leading actor) - Seiichi * '' 108: Revenge and Adventure of Goro Kaiba'' (2019) * '' BLACKFOX: Age of the Ninja'' (2019)

Television

* '' The Yagyu Conspiracy'' (1978) - Kitano * '' Juuken Sentai Gekiranger'' (33) - Head Samurai * '' Seibu Keisatsu'' * ''

The Unfettered Shogun (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 '' ...

V'' - Episode 26

Awards

* Japan Academy Prize Special Award from the Association (2004) * Fantasia International Film Festival Best Actor Award (2014)

References

External links

*
Actor Makes a Living Getting Killed by Samurai
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fukumoto, Seizo 1943 births 2021 deaths Japanese male film actors Actors from Hyōgo Prefecture 20th-century Japanese male actors 21st-century Japanese male actors Japanese male television actors Deaths from lung cancer in Japan