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Masanobu Ando

Acting Born May 19, 1975 Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan 24 credits

Biography

Masanobu Ando  (安藤 政信, Andō Masanobu, born May 19, 1975 in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese actor and director.

For his second film, in 1996, he won the Film Academy of Japan's Best New Actor Award, starring in Takeshi Kitano's Kids Return.

Ando has extensive experience in both Japanese television drama and film and has played a large variety of different roles: mentally challenged (Innocent World), bank robber (Space Travelers, Drive), doctor (Transparent), ninja and samurai (Red Shadow), even a corpse (Monday). Out of all of Ando's characters, he is best known for his role as Kazuo Kiriyama, the heartless, psychopathic killer in the controversial film, Battle Royale (2000). He also played an art forger in the low-budget Battle Royale parody Tokyo 10+01 (2003).

As well as acting, Ando has been in Japanese ad campaigns for the popular Japanese snack food, Pocky, Toyota, and for DoCoMo mobile phones.

In 2003, he directed his first film, Adagietto. Sehr langsam, starring Japanese actress, Kumiko Aso. The short is included in Hiroyuki Nakano's Peacedelic compilation called Short Films. In it, he also stars in the short, 県道スター (loosely translated to "Prefectural road star").

In his spare time, he enjoys photography and shopping

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Known for

Code Blue

as Shinkai Hiroki
Film

Battle Royale

as Kazuo Kiriyama (Boy #6)
Film

Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning

as Shinsaku Takasugi

Full filmography

  • Fishbowl Wives (2022) as Takuya Hiraga [Sakura's husband]
  • Code Blue (2008) as Shinkai Hiroki
  • Your Turn to Kill (2019) as Go Sano
  • Battle Royale (2000) as Kazuo Kiriyama (Boy #6)
  • シリーズ・横溝正史短編集 (2016) as Haruki Kagawa
  • Keigo Higashino Mysteries (2012)
  • Voice (2019) as Kyosuke Kuon
  • Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning (2021) as Shinsaku Takasugi
  • Pandora's Fruit (2022) as Caen Karl
  • The Sun Does Not Move (2020) as Osamu Sakurai
  • City Hunter (2024) as Hideyuki Makimura
  • The Secret Lives of Kyoto Folk (2015)
  • Destiny (2024) as Okuda Takashi
  • House of the Owl (2024) as Ichiro Ogami
  • The Royal Family (2025) as Hiroshi Hironaka
  • Love and Fortune (2018) as Tsuchiya Jo
  • Tokyo Houchi Shokudou (2021) as Kotaro Higashi
  • The Ship of Theseus (2020) as Mikio Kimura
  • My Second Aoharu (2023) as Hinata Shogo
  • Sadako vs. Kayako (2016) as Keizō Tokiwa
  • Code Blue: The Movie (2018) as Hiroki Shinkai
  • The Ideal Man (2021) as Mitsuyasu
  • Gossip (2022) as Masaki Niwa
  • DIVER -Special Investigation Unit- (2020) as Naoya Date（伊達 直哉）