Ken Watanabe
Ken Watanabe (born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. To English-speaking audiences he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai,... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
Inception
2010
Kokuhô
In post-war Japan's economic boom, gangster family-born Kikuo Tachibana finds himself adopted by a kabuki actor. Despite life's challenges, he develops into a gifted performer.
The Creator
Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war—and mankind itself.
Kensuke's Kingdom
A young boy and his family set off on a sailing trip of a lifetime until a violent storm erupts, sweeping Michael and his dog overboard.
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (Pokémon) to do battle, a boy comes across an intelligent monster who seeks to be a detective.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
The crypto-zoological agency Monarch faces off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah.
Isle of Dogs
In the future, an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all dogs to an island that's a garbage dump. The outcasts must soon embark on an epic journey when a 12-year-old boy arrives on the island to find his beloved pet.
Transformers: The Last Knight
Autobots and Decepticons are at war, with humans on the sidelines. Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth.
Ikari
A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees. At three different locations in Japan, a male stranger appears. People suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.
The Sea of Trees
A suicidal American befriends a Japanese man lost in a forest near Mt. Fuji and the two search for a way out.
Transformers: Age of Extinction
As humanity picks up the pieces after the battle of Chicago, a shadowy group reveals itself in an attempt to control the direction of history…while an ancient, powerful new menace sets Earth in its crosshairs. With help from Cade Yeager, Optimus Prime and the Autobots rise to meet their most fearsome challenge yet.
Shanghai
An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.
Inception
In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a single idea within one's mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Darren Shan is a regular teenage kid. He and his friend Steve find out about a Freak Show coming to town and work hard at trying to find tickets. They do, and together they go to "Cirque du Freak" where they see many strange acts including a wolf-man and a bearded lady
Earth
From the acclaimed team that brought you BBC's visual feast "Planet Earth," this feature length film incorporates some of the same footage from the series with all new scenes following three remarkable, yet sadly endangered, families of animal across the globe.
Letters from Iwo Jima
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Memoirs of a Geisha
Based on the internationally acclaimed novel by Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha is a sweeping romantic epic set in a mysterious and exotic world that still casts a potent spell today. The story begins in the years before WWII when a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Batman Begins
Many years ago a young millionaire’s son named Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents murder. His life from then on would be lonely and dark. Changed by hate, violence, and injustice, he heads to Asia where he trains in advanced forms of Martial Arts. During his time away, Gotham City has become dark, corrupt and full of crime. It’s bat time!
Ashes and Snow
Ashes and Snow, a film by Gregory Colbert, uses both still and movie cameras to explore extraordinary interactions between humans and animals. The 60-minute feature is a poetic narrative rather than a documentary. It aims to lift the natural and artificial barriers between humans and other species, dissolving the distance that exists between them.
The Last Samurai
Adventure drama starring Tom Cruise as a disillusioned civil war veteran named Captain Nathan Algren. The depressive Algren is reluctantly a misson from the Japanese Emperor to kill a rebellious Samurai. Yet he is so fascinated by the knowledge and life of the Samurai that he cannot go on with his mission.
Rajio no Jikan
A love story written by an ordinary housewife is going to be broadcast as a radio drama and almost everyone among the crew insists on changing various parts of the play to their liking.
Umi to dokuyaku
Downed American fliers in WW II are vivisected by Japanese surgeons in medical experiments.
Tampopo
a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside fast food stop selling ramen noodles and help the widowed owner, Tampopo, turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle soup making".