05/12/2025
R.I.P. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa π
September 27, 1950 β December 4, 2025
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was a Japanese-born American and Russian actor and producer.
Often cast as villains, he is known for his film roles in: The Last Emperor, the James Bond film Licence to Kill, Showdown in Little Tokyo, American Me, Rising Sun, Mortal Kombat, The Phantom, Snow Falling on Cedars, Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, Memoirs of a Geisha, Tekken, 47 Ronin, Tekken 2: Kazuya's Revenge, and Kubo and the Two Strings. He starred as Trade Minister Nobusuke Tagomi on the Amazon Prime television series The Man in the High Castle, and Hiroki Watanabe on the Netflix series Lost in Space.
Tagawa is most known for his role as the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung in various works of the Mortal Kombat franchise: he first played the character in the 1995 film adaptation, and reprised it in 2013 for the television series Mortal Kombat: Legacy and in 2019 for the video game Mortal Kombat 11.
In 2015, Tagawa converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, and in 2016, he acquired Russian citizenship.
In the early morning hours of December 4, 2025, Tagawa died at his home in Santa Barbara, California at the age of 75, from complications of a stroke. He was surrounded by his children.
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