Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#49368
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Jun Tazaki represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Jun is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jun Tazaki appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jun. High and Low is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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 action, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Akira Kurosawa, Ishirō Honda, Jun Fukuda and others, Jun Tazaki 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.
High and Low (1963) as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director · Ran (1985) as Seiji Ayabe · Kwaidan (1965) as Kannai's Colleague #1 (segment "In a Cup of Tea") (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #49368 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1957–1985
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
High and Low
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.4
High and Low
Most frequent director
Ishirō Honda
5 films together
Longest collaboration
5×
With Ishirō Honda
Most common genre
Action
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
6.7
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
7.8 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Ran — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
8.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Mysterians.
Most productive era
1960s
8 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 | 1950s | 1960s | 1980s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.31 film | 7.33 films | 7.81 film |
| Action | 6.31 film | 6.66 films | 7.81 film |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 7.91 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Crime | — | 7.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | 7.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1957The Mysterians
Where our catalogue meets this career.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1963High and Low
7.9 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
1985Ran
The current state of the argument, as Seiji Ayabe.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
as Seiji Ayabe
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
as Kannai's Colleague #1 (segment "In a Cup of Tea") (uncredited)
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
as Dr. Yoshido
Directed by Ishirō Honda
as General of the JSDF Eastern Army
Directed by Ishirō Honda
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
Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
High and Low (1963)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director gives Jun Tazaki a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Seiji Ayabe
Ran (1985)
Performance score7.6
Ran asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Seiji Ayabe is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kannai's Colleague #1 (segment "In a Cup of Tea") (uncredited)
Kwaidan (1965)
Performance score7.2
Kwaidan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kannai's Colleague #1 (segment "In a Cup of Tea") (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Yoshido
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Performance score7.1
Destroy All Monsters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Yoshido 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 Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
Start here. High and Low is the clearest statement of what Jun Tazaki does — accessible, 142 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jun 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.
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
A deliberate change of key after High and Low — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Kwaidan (1965)
Keeps the fantasy register of King Kong vs. Godzilla but asks for a colder reading of it.
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
A deliberate change of key after Kwaidan — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ran (1985)
Keeps the action register of Destroy All Monsters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ishirō Honda
Director
5 films together
Notably Mothra vs. Godzilla
Akira Kurosawa
Director
2 films together
Notably High and Low
Thomas Montgomery
Director
1 film together
Notably King Kong vs. Godzilla
Masaki Kobayashi
Director
1 film together
Notably Kwaidan
Jun Fukuda
Director
1 film together
Notably Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ishirō Honda
Director
5 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 5 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Mothra vs. GodzillaAkira Kurosawa
Director
2 films together · 7.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
High and LowMasaki Kobayashi
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
KwaidanThomas Montgomery
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
King Kong vs. GodzillaJun Fukuda
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ebirah, Horror of the DeepSix 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
High and Low
as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Ran
as Seiji Ayabe
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
High and Low
as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kwaidan
as Kannai's Colleague #1 (segment "In a Cup of Tea") (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
High and Low
as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
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. Jun Tazaki 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
28 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Action Legend
Awarded
8 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
Ran
as Seiji Ayabe
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
High and Low
as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ran
as Seiji Ayabe
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
High and Low
as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ran
as Seiji Ayabe
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
King Kong vs. Godzilla
as General Masami Shinzo (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
High and Low
as Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
as Red Bamboo Base Commander
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
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