"Tattooed Hit Man" Theatrical Poster
Media outlets are reporting the death of Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara, who died at the age of 81 on November 28th, due to liver cancer.
Sugawara has left behind an astonishing 200+ filmography, but he is perhaps best known to mainstream audiences for Tattooed Hit Man (1977), a Yakuza film that was imported by New Line Cinema the same year it was released in Japan.
Some of his most notable Japanese films include Kinji Fukasaku’s Without Honor and Humanity (1973) and the Truck Yaro films (1975 to 1979), which was a popular Toei series about a pair of truckers and their adventures in blinged out trucks. Sugawara also did Anime voice work for Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) and most recently, Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children (2012).
Our condolences go out to Sugawara’s family and friends.
