<figure id="attachment_314012" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-314012" style="width: 744px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b0716b46"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/05/2014111800167.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-314012" class="wp-caption-text">Ken Takakura (&#8217;13) expresses his joy at a press conference following the conferment of the Order of Culture.</figcaption></figure>
 Takakura&#8217;s partner for 17 years, Takatsuki Oda, recently published a book titled &#8220;Ken Takakura, the Last Season. (Bungeishunju), which was published by Takatsuki Oda, Ken Takakura&#8217;s partner for 17 years.
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
 The book describes in realistic detail his daily conversations with Mr. Takakura and his condition up to his death in November of the same year after being hospitalized in February of 2002 and repeatedly in and out of the hospital after being diagnosed with malignant lymphoma. I was drawn into the story so much that I read it all the way through, having been on the set many times when I was a reporter, and having conducted interviews and solo interviews with her.
 The book is a valuable documentary book that records the last years of the real Ms. Takakura&#8217;s life, including details of her hospitalization and medical condition, which until then had rarely been reported, and various things that Ms. Takakura eloquently told Ms. Takatsuki.
 Ms. Takatsuki had a fateful encounter with Mr. Takakura in 1996 in Hong Kong, where she was working as a freelance writer at the time, and later became his partner and adopted daughter in 2001, and is also the representative director of Takakura Promotion. Two years before his death, Mr. Takakura asked me
 Two years before she passed away, Ms. Takakura told me, &#8220;Please leave a note about me. You know me best.
 He said, &#8220;You know me best. Together with &#8220;Ken Takakura, His Love,&#8221; which was published in 2007, &#8220;Takakura Ken, His Love,&#8221; is a collection of Takakura&#8217;s works. (The same book), published in 1964, can be considered the definitive book on Mr. Takakura.
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
 After reading the book, I recalled many things I did when I covered Mr. Takakura as a reporter in charge of movies. There are too many episodes of Mr. Takakura, but one of the most memorable is the interview in October 1975 at the Hokkaido location of Daiei&#8217;s &#8220;Kimi yo Rage no Kawa o Watarete&#8221; that marked a turning point for Mr. Takakura.
 It was a film made by another company after he left Toei, to which he had belonged for about 20 years.
 The director is Junya Sato (from Toei), so I don&#8217;t feel like I am working somewhere else,&#8221; he said.
 But he said, &#8220;It&#8217;s only one company (Toei),
 I think it is necessary in the film industry from now on to have the right person in the right place in order to cast the best, not just one company (Toei). There is no Toei or Daiei.
 I was impressed by his enthusiasm.
 From now on, each film will be a battle,&#8221; he said with determination.
 He said with determination, &#8220;From now on, each film will be a battle.
 In contrast to the &#8220;taciturn Ken-san&#8221; of the ninkyo era, Mr. Takakura was very talkative in those days.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The reason why Ken became &quot;taciturn&quot; again is..."></div>
Mr. Takakura, who dominated the world with his &#8220;Showa Zankyoden&#8221; series that began in 1965 and other ninkyo films, along with &#8220;Karashishibotan on My Back,&#8221; was a symbol of a &#8220;man among men,&#8221; a &#8220;taciturn man,&#8221; and a &#8220;stoic. He had become a symbol of &#8220;a man among men,&#8221; &#8220;a taciturn man,&#8221; and &#8220;a stoic.
 The theme song of the series, &#8220;Karashishibotan&#8221; (1966), became a popular phrase, along with the play&#8217;s signature line, &#8220;I&#8217;ll have you die. Yukio Mishima sang this song in his car on the way to Ichigaya during the incident in 1970 when he and a member of the Tate no Kai broke into the Self Defense Force&#8217;s Ichigaya Camp and committed suicide. There are still urban legendary stories that the Zenkyoto of the University of Tokyo sang this song in the barricades.&#8217; The song attracted both the left and right during the turbulent years of the 1970 Security Treaty.
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
 After that, with the hit &#8220;Battles Without Honor and Humanity&#8221; starring Bunta Sugawara in 1973, Toei&#8217;s real-life line became mainstream, and &#8220;Golgo 13&#8221; and &#8220;Yamaguchigumi III&#8221; released in the same year became hits, but Mr. Takakura, who had been stagnant since then, began to talk eloquently in interviews in search of a way out. Ken Takakura, the Last Season. I thought that this was the real image of Mr. Takakura, who was also very talkative as written in &#8220;Ken Takakura, the Last Season.
 In 1977, Mr. Takakura won the 51st Kinema Junpo Best Ten Best Actor Award, the 20th Blue Ribbon Award, and the 1st Japan Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in &#8220;Hakkoudasan&#8221; (directed by Shiro Moriya) and &#8220;The Yellow Handkerchief&#8221; directed by Yoji Yamada, although he had not won many film awards in his chivalrous days. He won a total of film awards, including the 51st Kinema Junpo Best Ten Best Actor Award, the 20th Blue Ribbon Award, and the Best Leading Actor Award at the 1st Japan Academy Prize. After that, Mr. Takakura established his steadfast presence as an actor, no longer speaking eloquently to the media, and seems to have returned to the &#8220;taciturn Ken-san&#8221; and &#8220;solitary actor&#8221; role.
 In January 1978, the 20th Blue Ribbon Awards sponsored by the Tokyo Eiga Press Club, of which I was one of the members, selected Mr. Takakura for Best Actor by an overwhelming margin, but there was a &#8220;cloud-hiding furore&#8221; in which Takakura could not be contacted until the last minute of the awards ceremony. However, there was a &#8220;cloud-hiding scandal&#8221; in which Takakura could not be reached until the last minute of the awards ceremony.
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
 When the shooting of a movie is over, he often goes on a solo trip abroad, and in July 1974, when we interviewed him at Toei Kyoto Studio where the shooting of &#8220;The Third Assumption&#8221; (directed by Shigehiro Ozawa), a sequel to Toei&#8217;s &#8220;Yamaguchigumi: The Third Generation&#8221; (1973), was conducted, he said that he was &#8220;clouded&#8221; for about two months before cranking-in. He revealed that he had &#8220;gone into hiding&#8221; for about two months and traveled alone in Spain and the U.S. before the filming of the film.
 I traveled completely alone,&#8221; he said. I saw a few movies in the U.S., but there were not many good ones because the Academy Awards are held at the end of the year, so the good ones are concentrated there.
 He showed his knowledge of movies.
 In December of that year, when I interviewed him at the Kyoto studio while he was starring in &#8220;Nihon ninkyo-do gekiatsuhen&#8221; (directed by Kosaku Yamashita), he talked about his customary solo trips abroad.
 In October and November (in the U.S.), there were the fewest number of movies, but I still saw 14.15 movies. But I still saw 14.15 movies. I enjoyed Henry Fonda&#8217;s &#8220;Mr. Nobody&#8221; and Sam Peckinpah&#8217;s &#8220;Garcia&#8217;s Head.
 He said.
 It was surprising that &#8220;Ken-san, the chivalrous movie guy,&#8221; would talk about foreign films, but it showed that he had a broad perspective on movies and was eager to absorb them from that time. Many of the films that attracted Mr. Takakura are included, along with his impressions, in the aforementioned &#8220;Ken Takakura, Sono Ai. The films that attracted Mr. Takakura are included with his impressions in the aforementioned &#8220;Ken Takakura, His Love.

 Former head of the Culture and Society Department of Tokyo Sports Newspaper. After retiring, he started the web magazine "PlusαToday" and writes articles on movies and Hollywood information. Member of the Japan Film Pen Club.

 Ryo Sakamoto

 Kyodo

 Ken Takakura, the "great star of the silver screen," passed away in 2002. He was a taciturn man whose private life was shrouded in secrecy, but a book published by his partner, who took care of him in his final days, has become the talk of the town. ......

Ken Takakura is in the spotlight again after his &#8220;partner publishes book&#8221; Reporters see his eloquence and the truth behind the &#8220;cloud-hiding furore

Ken Takakura is in the spotlight again after his “partner publishes book” Reporters see his eloquence and the truth behind the “cloud-hiding furore

Access Ranking