Nakadai looks back on career at Beijing lecture

Tatsuya Nakadai, 86, a renowned Japanese actor, plans to perform in Tartuffe in Tokyo this year. It is a comedy written by French playwright Moliere in 1664.

Nakadai was invited to perform Tartuffe in Beijing in the second half of 2020, but has yet to confirm. He was invited by the China Theatre Association in late March to hold lectures and Q&As with Chinese audiences in Beijing and Shanghai.

During his over 60-year career in theater, film and TV opera, Tatsuya Nakadai has worked with many famous Japanese film directors, such as Akira Kurosawa in the film Ran (chaos), and Masaki Kobayashi in Black River.

He has won numerous awards including the Blue Ribbon Award for best actor for his performance in Harakiri (cutting the belly). The film Kagemusha (shadow warrior) where he played the lead role won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

He has also depicted many characters from Western literature on stage, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth, and Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman.

Nakadai has visited China as a representative of Japanese film delegations twice, and was one of the main characters in Daichi no Ko, a TV opera co-produced by China and Japan in 1995. He also once traveled along the ancient Silk Road.

"I want to continue contributing to the friendship of Japan and China," Nakadai said at a panel discussion in Beijing on March 21.

Chinese director Lu Chuan said at the event he had watched much of Nakadai's work, and could hardly believe all the characters were portrayed by the same actor.

"In him, I saw the spirit of devotion to performance," Lu said.

Lu first gained international recognition in 2009 for the film City of Life and Death, a war epic based on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

Nakadai said although he hadn't watched the film, he thought it must convey the Chinese director's anti-war stance.