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Date of Birth
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16-February-1931
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Place of Birth
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Kitakyushu
(Japan, Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu)
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Nationality
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Japan
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Also know as
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Gouichi Oda, Goichi Oda, Takakura Ken, The Japanese Clint Eastwood, Oda GÅichi, 高倉 å¥, ãŸã‹ãら ã‘ã‚“, å°ç”° 剛一, ãŠã ã”ã†ã„ã¡, å°ç”°å‰›ä¸€, Gouichi Oda
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Profession
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Actor
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Ken Takakura, born Goichi Oda, is a Japanese actor best known for his brooding style and the stoic presence he brings to his roles.
Takakura gained his streetwise swagger and tough-guy persona watching yakuza turf battles over the lucrative black market and racketeering in postwar Fukuoka Prefecture. This subject was covered in one of his most famous movies, Showa Zankyo-den, in which he played an honorable old-school yakuza among the violent post-war gurentai.
A graduate of Meiji University in Tokyo, Takakura happened by an audition in 1955 at the Toei Film Company, and decided to look in. Toei found a natural in Takakura as he debuted with Denko Karate Uchi in 1956. Japan experienced a boom in gangster films in the 1960s as the Japanese people struggled with the generational differences between those raised in pre-war and post-war Japan and these were Takakura's stock and trade. His breakout role would be in the 1965 film Abashiri Prison, and its sequel Abashiri Bangaichi: Bokyohen, in which he played an ex-con antihero. By the time Takakura left Toei in 1976, he had appeared in over 180 films.
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