Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5122
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Cary-Hiroyuki is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cary-Hiroyuki. Hachi: A Dog's Tale is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for science fiction, comedy, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Roland Joffé, Travis Knight, Ekachai Uekrongtham and others, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009) as Ken · Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) as Hashi (voice) · Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) as The Baron
Career snapshot
Ranked #5122 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1986–2020
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
Most frequent director
Roland Joffé
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Roland Joffé
Most common genre
Action
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.6
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1980s
6.8 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Licence to Kill, Twins, The Last Emperor — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Licence to Kill, Twins, The Last Emperor.
Most productive era
2000s
7 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.41 film | 6.12 films | 7.53 films | 6.22 films | — |
| Action | 6.82 films | 6.23 films | 6.13 films | 6.22 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.51 film | 6.11 film | 5.81 film | 5.52 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.72 films | 6.41 film | 5.31 film | — | 5.01 film |
| Crime | — | 6.41 film | 5.31 film | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.11 film | 7.61 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | — | 5.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1986Big Trouble in Little China
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wing Kong Man - Extra (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2020Insert Coin
The current state of the argument, as Shang Tsung.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
21 of 21 films
as Hashi (voice)
Directed by Travis Knight
as The Baron
Directed by Rob Marshall
as Brushogun (voice)
Directed by Heather A. Maxwell
as Chang
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Ken
Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ken gives Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Hashi (voice)
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Performance score7.4
Kubo and the Two Strings asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hashi (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
The Baron
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Performance score7.4
Memoirs of a Geisha asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Baron is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Brushogun (voice)
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo (2006)
Performance score7.2
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Brushogun (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Ken
Start here. Hachi: A Dog's Tale is the clearest statement of what Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa does — accessible, 93 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cary-Hiroyuki at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
The Last Emperor (1987)
Keeps the drama register of Hachi: A Dog's Tale but asks for a colder reading of it.
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Keeps the drama register of The Last Emperor but asks for a colder reading of it.
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo (2006)
A deliberate change of key after Memoirs of a Geisha — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Keeps the animation register of Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Carpenter
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Trouble in Little China
Bernardo Bertolucci
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Emperor
Ivan Reitman
Director
1 film together
Notably Twins
John Glen
Director
1 film together
Notably Licence to Kill
Mark L. Lester
Director
1 film together
Notably Showdown in Little Tokyo
Philip Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Rising Sun
Paul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Mortal Kombat
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Planet of the Apes
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Pearl Harbor
Rob Bowman
Director
1 film together
Notably Elektra
Rob Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Memoirs of a Geisha
Heather A. Maxwell
Director
1 film together
Notably Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
Robert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together
Notably Balls of Fury
Lasse Hallström
Director
1 film together
Notably Hachi: A Dog's Tale
Ekachai Uekrongtham
Director
1 film together
Notably Skin Trade
Travis Knight
Director
1 film together
Notably Kubo and the Two Strings
Roland Joffé
Director
1 film together
Notably A Lover Scorned
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Lasse Hallström
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hachi: A Dog's TaleTravis Knight
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kubo and the Two StringsRob Marshall
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Memoirs of a GeishaBernardo Bertolucci
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last EmperorHeather A. Maxwell
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Teen Titans: Trouble in TokyoJohn Carpenter
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big Trouble in Little ChinaMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pearl HarborJohn Glen
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Licence to KillMark L. Lester
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Showdown in Little TokyoIvan Reitman
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TwinsEkachai Uekrongtham
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Skin TradePaul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mortal KombatPhilip Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rising SunTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Planet of the ApesRobert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Balls of FuryRob Bowman
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ElektraRoland Joffé
Director
1 film together · 4.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Lover ScornedSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
as Ken
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
as Ken
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
as Ken
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Big Trouble in Little China
as Wing Kong Man - Extra (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
as Ken
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
34 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Action Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in action, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
as Ken
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
as Brushogun (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
as Ken
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Skin Trade
as Senator Khat
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Big Trouble in Little China
as Wing Kong Man - Extra (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Licence to Kill
as Kwang
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Pearl Harbor
as Genda
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mortal Kombat
as Shang Tsung
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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