Biography
This page uses content from the Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (田川洋行, born 27 September, 1950 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese American actor.
In addition to his extensive film work, he has appeared on television in Star Trek: The Next Generation - "Encounter at Farpoint" (1987), Thunder in Paradise (1995), Nash Bridges (1996), and Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding (2003). He also provided the voice of Sin Tzu for the video game Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu. He is usually typecasted as a bad guy in movies like Mortal Kombat, Pearl Harbor, Memoirs of a Geisha, etc.
The son of an actress from Tokyo and an American father who served in the United States Army (stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Fort Polk, Louisiana and Fort Hood, Texas), Tagawa was born in Tokyo and was raised in various cities. He began acting in high school in Southern California. He attended the University of Southern California, and was an exchange student in Japan.
His breakthrough as an actor came when he was cast as Chang in The Last Emperor (1987).
In 1989 he posed as an undercover agent of the Hong Kong Narcotics Board in the James Bond film License to Kill.
Many will remember him in the movie Mortal Kombat (1995) as the shape-shifting sorcerer Shang Tsung, and as the deadly pirate leader Kabai Singh in The Phantom (1996).
He and his American wife and children live in Hawaii.
Partial filmography
- The Last Emperor (1987)
- Twins (1988)
- Bulletproof (1988)
- Licence to Kill (1989)
- Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)
- Kickboxer 2: The Road Back ( 1991)
- Nemesis (1993)
- Rising Sun (1993)
- Picture Bride (1994)
- Mortal Kombat (1995)
- The Phantom (1996)
- Top of the World (1997)
- Danger Zone (1997)
- Vampires (1998)
- Johnny Tsunami (1999)
- Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)
- The Art of War (2000)
- Pearl Harbor (2001)
- Planet of the Apes (2001)
- Elektra (2005)
- Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
External links
- Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa interview at Goldsea Asian American Daily
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
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