Keiji Sada
Acting
Biography
Keiji Sada was a Japanese actor. He won the award for Best Actor at the 7th Blue Ribbon Awards for Anata Kaimasu (I Will Buy You) and Taifū Sōdōki (Typhoon). He was the father of the actor Kiichi Nakai. Sada is primarily known for starring in Ozu films, especially in the 1950s and most famously Good Morning (1959). He also was a supporting actor in two films of Masaki Kobayashi's Human Condition trilogy. Sada was born in Kyoto in 1926. While a student, he roomed at a boarding house owned by the actor Shuji Sano, and on graduation was offered a position at Shochiku Studios. He was paired with Kinuyo Tanaka for his debut appearance, Keisuke Kinoshita's Phoenix. Sada was killed in a car crash in 1964. His wife and children were unharmed. He was 37.
Born: December 9, 1926
Place of Birth: Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan
Known For
Times of Joy and Sorrow
The story of the trials and tribulations of a lighthouse keeper and his wife.
The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity
Kaji is sent to the Japanese army labeled Red and is mistreated by the vets. Along his assignment, Kaji witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against the recruit Obara. He also sees his friend Shinjô Ittôhei defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labor chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts, and moves to Manchuria with his newly-wed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.
An Autumn Afternoon
Shuhei Hirayama is a widower with a 24-year-old daughter. Gradually, he comes to realize that she should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her.
Late Autumn
A woman and her daughter are each forced to contend with an increasing pressure to marry, particularly from three men who knew her late husband.
Good Morning
A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.
Immortal Love
A young woman is forced by circumstance into a loveless marriage while still in love with another. This episodic tale follows their story through three decades of bitter conflict which engulfs their children and those around them.
Brand of Evil
A Jonan Station detective, Kikuchi, is framed for smuggling drugs and sent to prison. When he is paroled, he joins a private detective agency, where he is asked to investigate Mitsue Takazawa, the wife of a local trading firm president. While secretly conducting his own research, he finds out that Takazawa's husband is the one, responsible for Kikuchi's imprisonment, who also have set sights on Setsuko, a woman Kikuchi becomes romantically involved with.
Sweet Sweat
This film by Toyoda depicts the hard life of an unmarried mother in Tokyo. Umeko (Machiko Kyo), at 36, is working in a bar, struggling valiantly to keep her family together. Her 17-year-old daughter Takeko becomes increasingly upset by her mother's constant drinking and yakuza boyfriend, and runs away from home. Kyo's performance was highly praised.
Equinox Flower
Wataru Hirayama's outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter declares that she is in love with a coworker and is adamant to live life her own way, instead of agreeing to an arranged marriage. Outwitted by his female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.
Filmography
as Tatsuoka
as Takazawa Shigeharu
as Ryosuke Kurumiya
as Jiro Okuyama
as Nagano Shuzen
as Ichirô Hasegawa
as Yajuro
as Keiji Sada
as Koichi
as Yoshio Nonaka, Torae's husband
as Yonesaku Nihei
as Takashi
as Reiichiro Kadota
as Shotaru Goto
as Takashi Kiguchi
as Saburo Yaoi
as Takayama
as Kageyama Shôi
as Kazuo
as Tonomura
as Heiichiro Fukui
as Eitarô Makita
as Kageyama
as Western-style painter Nishiwaki
as Masahiko Taniguchi
as Tsurukawa Matsuo
as Denshichi Kumazawa
as Kaneshige
as Shiro Arisawa
as Kazuo
as Daisuke Kishimoto
as Shunsuke, Fuyuko's brother-in-law
as Shaochang
as Ryoichi Morita
as Tatsuya
as Tamihiko Kujirai
as Saburo Uchiyama, Tomoko's boyfriend
as Mr. Ogawa
as Shinnosuke Koyanagi
as Kohei
as Kobotoke Kohei
as Goro
as Nakajima
as Shinichi Yasaka