Tatsuya Nakadai

In Harakiri (1962), Tatsuya Nakadai makes a formal conversation feel as though something might break. As the ronin Hanshiro Tsugumo, he gives measured exchanges a pressure that keeps us attending even when the story is slow to move. Masaki Kobayashi lets him hold those passages without hurrying past their ceremony. We found the film harrowing because his restraint makes the cruelty beneath all that talk of honour harder to bear.

His breakthrough came as Kaji in Kobayashi's The Human Condition trilogy (1959–1961), a long, demanding lead that established him as a major star. Akira Kurosawa cast him as the gun-carrying Unosuke in Yojimbo (1961) and Chief Detective Tokura in High and Low (1963). Those parts make the samurai label look a little narrow. What interests us across them is how readily his intensity suits men who threaten order as well as those charged with keeping it.

His theatrical training helps explain the heightened manner, and some reviews of his samurai work have found it exaggerated. We can see why the formality might keep a viewer at a distance, though in Harakiri it gives us a reason to look closer. Kobayashi trusts Nakadai to keep the feeling legible beneath Tsugumo's controlled manner, even through passages that risk becoming forbidding. The storytelling sometimes tests our patience; the performance keeps rewarding it.

He was often cast as men older than himself, using make-up and physical presence to convey their authority. Kurosawa later gave him the double lead in Kagemusha (1980) and the role of Lord Hidetora Ichimonji in Ran (1985). His expressive eyes and physical transformation make the warlord's decline convincing. For an introduction, though, we would choose the controlled performance in Harakiri. Give its conversations time, and do not expect Nakadai to tell us everything at once.