First,
Shintaro Katsu
shin 2.
I wonder how many of the members of this web site even know who Katsu-shin was, given the fact that the great majority of posters are in their 20's or younger.
My first thought was... No Way! then I saw A.D.'s post about never having seen him, and I thought... how old am I? Then it occured to me... boy do these guys have a treat in store.
A.D. Shintaro Katsu was one of Japan's (the world's) great movie stars. His
"Zatoichi" movies were THE most popular, most successful samurai movies in the history of Japanese cinema. He made about 2 dozen of the movies (many comic, some straight drama, some melo drama), and he also did the character in a TV series. There are over 100 episodes of the Zatoichi TV series just starting to hit the rental market.
He always reminded me of the English actor, Robert Newton. Like Newton, who's fine career was overshadowed by his portrayal of
"Long John Silver, Katsu Shin is mostly remembered for
Zatoichi. But boy did he make a lot of other fine movies.
I think you'll make yourself very happy if you look him up and give a couple of his movies a try.
runpup re: Ryo. This page would quickly lose it's "family" rating if I started talking about her best features. Man... I stared at those photos for a while and suddenly I'm very hungry. (By the way... I'm a big fan of her longer hair.)
Monta
"Dare Yori mo Mama wo Aisu" =
Yuki Uchida.
I really enjoyed the show, but odds are, my enjoyment was based mostly on the fact that Yuki was in it. I tend to become very biased when she's around.
gaijinmark
I like your corvette line. Yeah, I don't think in terms of one Shomuni topping another Shomuni. It's all just one joyous, happy, trip.