[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4975941429735372.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:280:''[[{{Film/Inception}} I bought the airline. (beat) It seemed neater.]]'' ]]

->''"If the script is good, the cast and director good, I'll go anywhere."''

Ken Watanabe ((渡辺 謙, born October 21, 1959 in Koide, Niigata Prefecture) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese actor.

He started his acting career in the Land of the Rising Sun in TheEighties. Internationally, he is certainly one of the best known current actors from there, due to his prominent parts in a number of high profile Hollywoodian productions starting with ''Film/TheLastSamurai''.

Not related to Creator/AkenoWatanabe.
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!!Partial filmography:

* ''Film/{{Tampopo}}'' as Gun
* ''Dokuganryu Masamune'' as UsefulNotes/DateMasamune
* ''Film/TheLastSamurai'' as Katsumoto
* ''Film/MemoirsOfAGeisha'' as the Chairman
* ''Film/BatmanBegins'' as Ra's al Ghul's decoy
* ''Film/LettersFromIwoJima'' as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
* ''Film/{{Inception}}'' as Saito
* ''Film/{{Unforgiven}}'' (Japanese remake) as Jubei Kamata
* Film/MonsterVerse as Doctor Ishiro Serizawa
** ''Film/{{Godzilla|2014}}''
** ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]''
* Film/TransformersFilmSeries as Drift
** ''Film/TransformersAgeOfExtinction''
** ''Film/TransformersTheLastKnight''
* ''Film/TheSeaOfTrees'' as Takumi
* ''WesternAnimation/IsleOfDogs'' as Head Surgeon
* ''Segodon'' as Shimazu Nariakira
* ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'' as Detective Hide Yoshida
* ''Series/TokyoVice'' as Hiroto Katagiri
* ''Film/{{The Creator|2023}}'' as Harun

!!Tropes to be found in his works:

* TheBigGuy: At about 6'1, he's very tall, especially by Japanese standards where the average male height is about 5'7.
* {{Samurai}}: His most famous Japanese role was as Date Masamune in the 1987 Creator/{{NHK}} drama ''Dokuganryu Masamune''. And his most famous international role was also a samurai, Katsumoto, in ''The Last Samurai''. 2018 sees this piled up with another NHK drama, ''Segodon'', where he plays 19th century Satsuma daimyo Shimazu Nariakira -- who, coincidentally, was the lord of Saigo Takamori, the RealLife basis for ''The Last Samurai''. Even Drift, a voiced character in the ''Transformers'' film series, is deliberately samurai themed.
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-->''"We call him...[[Film/Godzilla2014 Gojira]]."''
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