‘Shogun’ Star Tadanobu Asano to Receive THR’s Trailblazer Award

Tadanobu Asano is set to receive The Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award at the upcoming 37th installment of the Tokyo International Film Festival next month. 

The chameleonic screen actor has been a mainstay of Japanese cinema for nearly three decades while regularly appearing in prominent supporting parts in big Hollywood productions. But his swaggering recent performance as the irascible samurai Yabushige on FX‘s smash-hit series Shogun has given him an all-new level of global recognition over the past year. In the process of becoming an indelible fan favorite, Asano also received his first Emmy nomination for the part. 

THR’s Trailblazer Award, whose recent honorees include six-time Emmy winner Jean Smart, David Oyelowo, Eva Longoria, Matt Bomer, Niecy Nash-Betts and America Ferrera, is given to artists whose work and careers illuminate stories and characters who have been traditionally marginalized in Hollywood. International editor Abid Rahman will present Asano with the award on Oct. 30 at THR Japan’s annual Tokyo Film Festival soirée at The Peninsula Hotel in the city’s upscale Ginza district. Stars and dealmakers from across the Japanese film landscape are expected to turn out in force for the gathering. 

Asano is best known in Japan as a pioneering figure for independent-minded Asian cinema — and that reputation has hardly dimmed since Shogun‘s global success. He walked the Venice Film Festival’s red carpet earlier this month in support of a lead part in Broken Rage, a well-received satirical yakuza film from Japanese entertainment legend Takeshi Kitano. He’ll next appear in Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang‘s culinary thriller Morte Cucina, and filmmaker Mark Gill’s Ravens, a biographical drama about the life of the great Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase.

A survey of Asano’s filmography features starring roles in projects from many of Japan’s most acclaimed directorial voices of the past 30 years, including Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer), Kitano (Zatōichi), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Journey to the Shore), Shinya Tsukamoto (Gemini), Hirokazu Kore-eda (Maboroshi), Shunji Iwai (Picnic), Gakuryu Ishii (Electric Dragon 80.000 V) and Nagisa Oshima (Taboo). On the international front, he has collaborated with top regional auteurs: Thailand’s Pen-Ek (Last Life in the Universe), Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-hsien (Café Lumière), Russia’s Sergei Bodrov (Mongol). On the domestic front, he’s also worked with an expanding list of Hollywood heavyweights, like Martin Scorsese (Silence), Roland Emmerich (Midway), Johnny Depp (Minamata), Marvel with its Thor movies (Asano played Hogun), and Warner Bros. with the Mortal Kombat franchise (as Raiden). 

Throughout it all and whatever the part, Asano has remained consistently and beguilingly watchable.

The 2024 Tokyo International Film Festival runs Oct. 28-Nov. 6. The event’s full lineup will be unveiled on Sept. 25.