Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#64564
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Oshirō Maeda works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Oshirō Maeda appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Oshirō. The Samurai and the Prisoner is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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 horror, science fiction, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yuriyan Retriever, Makoto Ueda, Kuruma Takahira and others, Oshirō Maeda 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.
The Samurai and the Prisoner (2026) as Kuriyama Zensuke · 10DANCE (2025) as Dance Industry Magazine Editor · Mag Mag (2026) as Hiroshi Masumura
Career snapshot
Ranked #64564 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2011–2026
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
The Samurai and the Prisoner
Average Nutevio score
5.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.4
The Samurai and the Prisoner
Most frequent director
Ayuko Tsukahara
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Ayuko Tsukahara
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
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
6.2
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
2010s
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. I Wish — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. I Wish.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.31 film | 5.37 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 2.32 films |
| Crime | — | 6.81 film |
| Romance | — | 6.64 films |
| Horror | — | 7.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2011I Wish
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ryoonosuke Kinami.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026The Samurai and the Prisoner
8.4 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. The current state of the argument, as Kuriyama Zensuke.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Kuriyama Zensuke
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
as Hiroshi Masumura
Directed by Yuriyan Retriever
as Ryoonosuke Kinami
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Kuriyama Zensuke
The Samurai and the Prisoner (2026)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kuriyama Zensuke gives Oshirō Maeda a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Hiroshi Masumura
Mag Mag (2026)
Performance score7.7
Mag Mag asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hiroshi Masumura is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dance Industry Magazine Editor
10DANCE (2025)
Performance score7.6
10DANCE asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dance Industry Magazine Editor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ryoonosuke Kinami
I Wish (2011)
Performance score7.6
I Wish asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ryoonosuke Kinami 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 Kuriyama Zensuke
Start here. The Samurai and the Prisoner is the clearest statement of what Oshirō Maeda does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Oshirō 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.
I Wish (2011)
Keeps the drama register of The Samurai and the Prisoner but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Girl on the Shore (2021)
Keeps the drama register of I Wish but asks for a colder reading of it.
10DANCE (2025)
Same director as A Girl on the Shore, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Mag Mag (2026)
A deliberate change of key after 10DANCE — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ayuko Tsukahara
Director
2 films together
Notably My Happy Marriage
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together
Notably I Wish
Michihito Fujii
Director
1 film together
Notably Namonaki Itsupen: Tokyo Moratorium
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Director
1 film together
Notably The Samurai and the Prisoner
Kuruma Takahira
Director
1 film together
Notably BREAK SHOT
Makoto Ueda
Director
1 film together
Notably You Are the Film
Yuriyan Retriever
Director
1 film together
Notably Mag Mag
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ayuko Tsukahara
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
My Happy MarriageKiyoshi Kurosawa
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Samurai and the PrisonerYuriyan Retriever
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mag MagHirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I WishMakoto Ueda
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You Are the FilmKuruma Takahira
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BREAK SHOTMichihito Fujii
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Namonaki Itsupen: Tokyo MoratoriumSix 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
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
10DANCE
as Dance Industry Magazine Editor
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
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. Oshirō Maeda 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Drama Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in drama, 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
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
10DANCE
as Dance Industry Magazine Editor
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Last Mile
as Sota Katsumata
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Samurai and the Prisoner
as Kuriyama Zensuke
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
10DANCE
as Dance Industry Magazine Editor
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Girl on the Shore
as Shouta Kashima
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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