Tamasaburo Bando

Tamasaburo Bando

Birth : 1950-04-25, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

History

Kabuki actor, and the most popular and celebrated onnagata (an actor specializing in female roles) currently on stage. He has also acted in a handful of films. Born in 1950, Shin'ichi Morita was adopted by Morita Kan'ya XIV, and made his first appearance on stage at the age of seven, under the name Bandō Kinoji. At a shūmei (naming ceremony) in 1964 he became the fifth to take the name Bandō Tamasaburō; his adoptive father had been the fourth. In 1993, he directed the film Yearning, which was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival

Profile

Tamasaburo Bando

Movies

Ume Goyomi
The main story concerns the rivalry between Adakichi and Yonehachi, two geisha of the Fukagawa district of Edo, for the love of the handsome and gentle Tanjirô. This situation gives rise to a number of highly entertaining scenes when, for example, in a fit of jealous rage Yonehachi tramples on the brand new haori coat that Adakichi has just presented to Tanjirô, or when, by way of revenge, Adakichi manages to beat Yonehachi over the head with a geta clog in an amusing parody from the famous highlight from "Kagamiyama Kokyô no Nishikie".
Tenshu monogatari
A young samurai dares to approach a castle mistress as he searches for an escaped falcon, a crime punishable by death, but escapes with his life. He is forced to return to the castle by the dying light, but the mistress has become fascinated with him...
Tenshu monogatari
Director
A young samurai dares to approach a castle mistress as he searches for an escaped falcon, a crime punishable by death, but escapes with his life. He is forced to return to the castle by the dying light, but the mistress has become fascinated with him...
The Written Face
Self
In Japanese theater women's roles are traditionally played by men. The man playing the woman's role, the Onnagata, does not imitate the woman, as in the West, but tries to capture her significance. He need not stick close to his model, but draws far more from his own identity - a shift of value takes place, which is nonetheless not a step beyond. THE WRITTEN FACE is an attempt to offer an insight into the Japanese Kabuki star Tamasaburo Bando, one of the last defenders of this ancient and disappearing performing tradition.
Nastazja
Prince Myshkin / Nastasya Filippovna (as Tamasaburo Bando)
Andrzej Wajda's Japanese-language film based on the last chapter of Dostoevsky's Idiot, in which Prince Myshkin and Rogozhin return to the past in a conversation over the dead body of Nastassya Filippovna. Bando Tamasaburo, regarded as one of the most outstanding female impersonators in Japanese theater, plays the dual role of Myshkin and Nastassya.
Yearning
Director
Famed onnagata (a man who plays women's parts in Kabuki) Tamasaburo Bando follows up on the success of his directorial debut, Gekashitsu, with this soft-focused romance about love and obligation, based on a novel by Kafu Nagai. Set during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Kaede (Sayuri Yoshinaga) is the former mistress of a wealthy merchant. When he dies, she is forced out on the street and forced to give up her young daughter to the merchant's family. The film opens with her working in a high-class brothel abutting Tokyo Bay. Though she has passionate affection for a drug wholesaler, whom she loves as well, Kaede is swamped with not only debts to the bordello and family obligations -- she is expected to support her parents and her sister -- but also guilt over losing her child. This pain is only increased when Kaede learns that her daughter is being abused. She does the only thing she can: She buys back her child by signing on at the brothel for a longer stint.
Gekashitsu
Screenplay
Melodrama about a woman refusing surgery.
Gekashitsu
Director
Melodrama about a woman refusing surgery.
Yumeji
Onshu Inamura
Following the life of Japanese artist and poet Yumeji Takehisa through the imagining of an encounter with a beautiful widow with a dark past.
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis
Kyoka Izumi
The reincarnation of a 10th century Japanese general haunts 1920's Tokyo.
Demon Pond
Yuri / Princess Shirayuki
Outside of a small village in Japan, a mysterious pond is inhabited by mythic creatures. Their story is of revenge, tragedy, and the power of real love. A classical tale which translates wonderfully to film.