# Ryo Kase

Ryo Kase (加瀬 亮, Kase Ryō, born November 9, 1974 in Yokohama) is a Japanese actor.

## Early life

Kase was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture. He moved to Bellevue, Washington in the United States soon after his birth, due to his father's job being transferred. His father Yutaka Kase, was former chairman and representative director of Sojitz, a major Japanese general trading company.

## Career

Kase made his screen debut in Sogo Ishii's Gojoe: Spirit War Chronicle in 2000.
That same year, Kase received his major break when he starred in the critically acclaimed film I Just Didn't Do It (2007), directed by Masayuki Suo, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the 31st Japan Academy Prize and the 2nd Asia Film Award, among other domestic and international film awards.
In 2010, Kase played a yakuza mobster in Takeshi Kitano’s highly anticipated return to the crime genre Outrage (アウトレイジ, Autoreiji) which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. The film was a major success, grossing 634 million yen at the Japan Box office, leading to two sequels.
In 2023, Kase reunited with Takeshi Kitano in the Japanese film Kubi about the Honnō-ji Incident. In the film, Kase portrayed the historical figure, Oda Nobunaga, a charismatic military leader revered and feared as a demon king in Japan. His wildly mad-like performance was highly praised by many journalists at the Cannes Film Festival. In Japan, this portrayal of Nobunaga, which diverges greatly from his public image of being cold yet violent but also deeply human and virtuous, has sparked debate. Some audience members felt that the character setting demeaned the historical figure, while others believed the acting was so realistic it seemed to overwrite the actual image of Nobunaga himself. When director Takeshi Kitano shared this original idea with the late director Akira Kurosawa, he was told that if Kitano were to make it, it could become a masterpiece on par with Seven Samurai. This work won several awards at the 47th Japan Academy Prize, including Excellence in Cinematography, Excellence in Lighting, Excellence in Art Direction, Excellence in Sound Recording, and Excellence in Editing. Ryo Kase, who played Nobunaga, also won the award for Excellent Supporting Actor.

### International Films

From the beginning of his career, Kase took advantage of his English fluency and participated in international films from various countries in Asia, Europe, and America.
His first American film was Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) directed by Clint Eastwood, where he delicately portrayed a complex character of a former military policeman turned young soldier. He made his Cannes Film Festival debut with Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love (2012). He has also appeared in Michel Gondry's Tokyo! (2008), Gus Van Sant's Restless (2011) with Mia Wasikowska, Hong Sang-soo's Hill of Freedom (2014), and Martin Scorsese's Silence (2016). In Paul Weitz's Bel Canto, he starred alongside Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe. In the film Minamata, inspired by a photo collection of Japan's pollution lawsuit taken by the late photographer Eugene Smith, he co-starred with Johnny Depp and Hiroyuki Sanada. In 2014, when Hong Sang-soo's Hill of Freedom was released, he was selected as the Best Actor by CINE21, a Korean film magazine, despite being a foreigner. In Kiyoshi Kurosawa's To the Ends of the Earth (2019), he won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 14th Asia Film Awards.

## Filmography
### Film

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 2000 | Gojoe: Spirit War Chronicle | Kamuro | |
| 2001 | Misuzu | Masasuke | |
| 2001 | Hush! | Soba-ya cashier | |
| 2001 | Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack | Fisher | |
| 2002 | Rock'n'Roll Mishin | Kenji Hamada | |
| 2003 | Bright Future | Fuyuki Arita | |
| 2003 | When the Last Sword Is Drawn | Shohei Kondo | |
| 2003 | Kakuto | Shinji | |
| 2004 | Cutie Honey | Todoroki | |
| 2004 | 69 | Ryo Otaki | |
| 2004 | The Taste of Tea | Rokutaro Hamadayama | |
| 2004 | Nobody Knows | Mini-market employee | |
| 2005 | Break Throughi! | Hideto Noguchi | |
| 2005 | Female | Man | Segment "Tamamushi" |
| 2005 | About Love | Tecchan | Segment "Taipei" |
| 2005 | Scrap Heaven | Police officer Shingo | |
| 2005 | The Passenger | Akira | |
| 2005 | Custom Made 10.30 | Probationer angel "Jeff" | |
| 2005 | Dead Run | Yuji Miyahara | |
| 2005 | Su-ki-da | | |
| 2006 | Funky Forest | Takefumi | |
| 2006 | Hana | Sodekichi | |
| 2006 | Honey and Clover | Takumi Mayama | |
| 2006 | Strawberry Shortcakes | Nagai | |
| 2006 | Letters from Iwo Jima | Superior Private Shimizu | |
| 2006 | Retribution | Sailor | |
| 2007 | I Just Didn't Do It | Teppei Kaneko | Lead role |
| 2007 | Megane | Yomogi | |
| 2008 | 10 Promises to My Dog | Susumu Hoshi | |
| 2008 | Gururi no koto | Tsuyoshi Tanaka | |
| 2008 | The Sky Crawlers | Yūichi Kannami (voice) | |
| 2008 | Paco and the Magical Book | Kōichi | |
| 2008 | Tokyo! | Akira | Segment "Interior Design" |
| 2009 | Gravity's Clowns | Izumi Okuno | Lead role |
| 2010 | Outrage | Ishihara | |
| 2010 | Sketches of Kaitan City | Haruo Meguro | |
| 2010 | About Her Brother | Akira | |
| 2011 | Restless | Hiroshi | |
| 2012 | Like Someone in Love | Noriaki | |
| 2012 | Outrage Beyond | Ishihara | |
| 2012 | SPEC: Ten | Takeru Sebumi | Lead role |
| 2013 | It's Me It's Me | Tajima | |
| 2013 | Pecoross' Mother and Her Days | Satoru Okano | |
| 2013 | SPEC: Close | Takeru Sebumi | Lead role |
| 2013 | Dawn of a Filmmaker | Keisuke Kinoshita | Lead role |
| 2014 | Hill of Freedom | Mori | |
| 2014 | My Hawaiian Discovery | Tomoya Abe | |
| 2014 | Judge! | | |
| 2015 | Our Little Sister | Miu Sakashita | |
| 2015 | Foujita | Kanjiro | |
| 2016 | Japanese Girls Never Die | Sawai (Policeman) | |
| 2016 | Silence | João (Chokichi) | |
| 2017 | March Comes in Like a Lion | Tōji Sōya | |
| 2017 | March Goes out Like a Lamb | Tōji Sōya | |
| 2017 | Moonlight Shimo-ochiai | | Lead role |
| 2018 | Mori, The Artist's Habitat | Takeshi Fujita | |
| 2018 | Lying to Mom | Kōichi Suzuki | |
| 2018 | Bel Canto | Gen Watanabe | |
| 2019 | To the Ends of the Earth | Iwao | |
| 2020 | Minamata | Kiyoshi | |
| 2020 | The Works and Days | Ryo Sasaki | |
| 2023 | Kubi | Oda Nobunaga | |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 2010 | SPEC: Birth | Takeru Sebumi | Lead role |
| 2012 | Penance | Koji Takano | Episode 3 |
| 2025 | Anpan | Yutaro Asada | Asadora |

## Writings

"Minna no Ozu-kai" in Ozu Yasujiro Taizen (The Complete Book of Ozu Yasujiro) by Matsuura Kanji and Miyamoto Akiko (Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. 2019) ISBN 9784022515995