Hiroyuki Sanada is a Japanese-born actor who has been a familiar face on Hollywood screens for two decades now. However, despite western audiences only knowing him for that period of time, Asian audiences have known him for far longer. Remarkably, Sanada made his acting debut at the age of six and has been making movies for close to 60 years now.
While the vast majority of his acting work was done in Japan, since making his Hollywood debut back in 2003, Sanada has become a firm fixture in Hollywood films and a valued part of the industry due to his amazing abilities. In honor of this veteran actor's outstanding career in film, here's a look back the best Hiroyuki Sanada movies.
10 Ring
Before The Ring and all its sequels became a popular horror franchise in Hollywood, the original Japanese horror films they were based on were already a hit with Asian audiences. The first of these was simply titled Ring in English, and formed the basis from which all other Japanese sequels and the Hollywood remake of the franchise were made.
Hiroyuki Sanada was one of the leads in the film series from the beginning, as he took on the role of Ryuji Takayama, who becomes a major character through the franchise. After starring in Ring Sanada went on to reprise his role in the Japanese sequels, Spiral and Ring 2.
9 The Twilight Samurai
By 2002, Hiroyuki Sanada was already a veteran actor with over 40 Japanese films under his belt, without even counting the dozens of TV roles and theater productions he's been involved in too. One of his best Japanese movies was certainly The Twilight Samurai, which told a poignant story of a low ranking samurai who becomes employed as a bureaucrat.
The film won a groundbreaking 12 Japanese Academy Prizes and was nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature Film. The film holds a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been certified as "Fresh" for good reason.
8 Lost
While not a movie, described be many critics as being one of the best TV shows of all time, Lost was a superhit with fans for six seasons between 2004 and 2010. By its last season, Hiroyuki Sanada, who was already making a name for himself in Hollywood by then, joined the cast as he played the role of a character called Dogen.
While his role was brief, Sanada's roles like the one on Lost was another sign of his blossoming career in Hollywood. From that show, he would go on to appear in other popular Hollywood shows such as Extant, Revenge, Westworld, and Marvel's Hawkeye.
7 47 Ronin
The sad truth of the film, 47 Ronin, was that it was a critical and commercial bomb. Despite this, fans of Keanu Reeves and mystical martial arts films still consider it a pretty cool movie. Amid the outlandish fight scenes, supernatural elements, and colorful costumes, the film certainly was entertaining.
Hiroyuki Sanada played a significant part in it as Yoshio Oishi, the leader of the Rōnin (samurai with no master). Sanada's success in the role would later lead to him teaming up with Keanu Reeves again in 2023 — but more on that later.
6 Avengers: Endgame
While this was definitely one of his smallest roles, the scene in question from Avengers: Endgame was a significant one since it introduced Sanada to one of the biggest and most commercially successful movie franchises in history.
In his famous scene with Hawkeye (in his iteration as another character from the comics named Ronin), Sanada played Achiko, a Yakuza leader who survived Thano's snap. Archival footage from the film was later used to add Sanada into an episode of the standalone show Hawkeye, firmly embedding Sanada as a minor part of the hugely popular and successful MCU.
5 Army of the Dead
In the Zack Snyder zombie film Army of the Dead, Sanada played one of the chief protagonists. As a man who wants to protect his interests in the city after Las Vegas becomes overrun with zombies, Sanada's character Bly Tanaka, a Japanese billionaire, hires a team of zombie hunters to infiltrate the city.
The film was fairly well received and was certainly entertaining. It has since been green-lit for two prequels, the first of which Army of Thieves has already been released. An anime series, Army of the Dead: Las Vegas, has also followed in the wake of the first film.
4 The Wolverine
As a part of another massive franchise, Sanada joined the iconic X-universe when he played Shingen Yashida in The Wolverine. The famous X-Man character Wolverine's exploits in Japan were often a large part of his comic-book adventures as he took on one of his most formidable foes.
The foe in question, The Silver Samurai, plays a part in a well known storyline and the film finally brought some screen time for the infamous villain and other famous characters from the Wolverine comics, such as his occasional love interest, the beautiful Mariko Yashida, and Wolverine's ally, the deadly Yukio. Playing Mariko Yashida's father in the film, Sanada's deep traditionalist values immediately put him at odds with iconic mutant, and he even has a one on one fight with Wolverine in the film.
3 The Last Samurai
Tom Cruise's 2003 epic period film The Last Samurai was a smash hit and introduced western audiences to Hiroyuki Sanada's talents. The film centered around Japan's samurai culture in the 1800s. Playing the tough and brutal trainer who puts Cruise's character through his paces as he reluctantly trains him in the fighting style of the Samurai, Sanada's own real life martial arts skills were plain to see.
His ease with a sword, purity of movement, and silky skills were all plainly evident in the way Sanada moved throughout the film's training and fight scenes that featured him. His natural abilities are easy to recognize once you realize that Sanada had been trained in martial arts since he was 11-years-old.
2 Bullet Train
One of the most recent offerings from Sanada, Netflix's Bullet Train saw him join a cast that included Brad Pitt, Joey King, Sandra Bullock, Michael Shannon, and Zazie Beetz, to name a few. An electrically paced action film, the movie has a ton of action and thrills along the way.
Featuring a highly convoluted story, the movie introduces a bunch of different characters with colorful backgrounds and backstories. Playing one such character known as The Elder, Sanada's character was one of the major players in the film and certainly one of the most memorable as he uses a cane as a samurai sword sheath and gets into an epic fight with it.
1 Mortal Kombat
Sanada's martial arts skills were out in full force in the 2021 film based on the massively popular videogame, Mortal Kombat. Given the previously disastrous attempts to bring the game to life through film, fans of the huge franchise were thrilled when it was announced that a new version would be made, this time with the brilliant James Wan at the helm.
As many fans had hoped for, this version of Mortal Kombat was confirmed to be R-Rated like the game, and would center around its historically most popular characters, Scorpion and Subzero. Since the film would finally delve into the backstories of these iconic characters, the role of the original Scorpion needed a strong screen presence to match the character's depth and inner-strength.
Sanada proved to be the perfect choice as he brilliantly brought the character to life in a way that left most fans drooling for more after suffering through some truly horrible renditions of the character in past films. The role also showcased the best of Sanada's martial arts skills and firmly cemented him as one of the leading Japanese actors in Hollywood.
In a majestic career, Sanada's film achievements seem set to only grow as he will also star in the highly anticipated and hugely popular upcoming film John Wick: Chapter 4 where he's set to star alongside Keanu Reeves again after their time together in 47 Ronin.