Yakusho Koji on 48 Years in Japanese Cinema and How ‘Shall We Dance?’ Brought Him to Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’

When Nakadai Tatsuya, one of Japan’s most celebrated actors, decided that his young student’s surname was too dull for the stage, he reached for an unlikely inspiration. Hashimoto Koji — as the actor was called then — had been working at a Tokyo municipal office before auditioning for Nakadai’s acting school. The word for such […]