Masahiro Motoki

Acting

Masahiro Motoki

Born 1965-12-21

Masahiro Motoki (本木雅弘 Motoki Masahiro, born December 21, 1965 in Okegawa, Japan) is a Japanese actor. He portrayed protagonist Daigo Kobayashi in Departures, which won the 81st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. His performance earned him the Award for Best Actor at the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, at the 3rd Asian Film Awards and at the 32nd Japan Academy Prize.

Acting credits

Departures poster
7.9

Daigo, a cellist, is laid off from his orchestra and moves with his wife back to his small hometown where the living is cheaper. Thinking he’s applying for a job at a travel agency he finds he’s being interviewed for work with departures of a more permanent nature – as an undertaker’s assistant.

Departures

2008

Shall We Dance? poster
7.5

A bored accountant spots a beautiful woman in the window of a ballroom dance studio. He secretly starts taking dancing lessons to be near her, and then over time discovers how much he loves dancing. His wife, meanwhile, has hired a private detective to find out why he has started coming home late smelling of perfume.

Shall We Dance?

1996

Tekkonkinkreet poster
7.4

Two penniless orphans, Black and White, struggle to survive on the mean streets of Treasure Town. When a megacorporation threatens to tear down the town to build an amusement park, Black and White engage in the fight of their life.

Tekkonkinkreet

2006

Touch poster
7.4

Soon after the break of the pandemic and realizing that his clock is ticking, Kristofer gets the urge to embark on a journey to try to find out what really happened when his Japanese girlfriend mysteriously vanished without a trace from London fifty years earlier.

Touch

2024

The Samurai and the Prisoner poster
7.9

When Lord Murashige rises up against the tyrannical Oda, he finds himself besieged within the walls of his own castle. Isolated, he is confronted with a series of mysterious crimes that shatter the fragile order of his court, plunging the fortress into fear and suspicion. With Oda's army closing in and a traitor hiding among his ranks, Murashige is forced into an uneasy alliance with Kanbei, a brilliant and dangerous strategist held prisoner in the dungeon, as he must outwit his enemies and uncover the truth before time runs out.

The Samurai and the Prisoner

2026

Playtime Never Ends poster
8.0

A serious-minded policeman plays the role of robber in a police training operation against bank robberies. He's so good his fellow policemen can't catch him. TV networks begin to broadcast the operation nationwide. TV audiences are amused and root for the runaway robber and police grows desperate to arrest him to save their face. However the robber remains at large.

Playtime Never Ends

1991

Heat Wave poster
5.9

Rin Jyoshima lost her father to death-by-gambling; years later, she's grown up in the Kosugi household and has fallen victim to gambling herself.

Heat Wave

1991

Black Jack poster
7.3

Matsuzaki, who gets critically injured after a sketchy deal, is taken by his girlfriend to a church where it is rumored that miracles happen. There, they find strange twins named Pinoko. With Pinoko's guidance, Matsuzaki is saved by a genius surgeon, BJ, in exchange for exorbitant fees. However, Matsuzaki is captured by the police. Meanwhile, Reiko, a female detective who pursues Matsuzaki and other organizations, tries to solve a mystery by conducting an independent investigation. It turns out Matsuzaki was found dead.

Black Jack

2000

Gemini poster
6.5

When his mother's untimely death quickly follows his father's, a doctor begins to believe a killer may be targeting him and his amnesiac wife.

Gemini

1999

The Bird People in China poster
7.2

Wada, a salary man, is enlisted to venture off to China to investigate a potential Jade mine. After his arrival, Wada encounters a violent, yet sentimental, yakuza, who takes the liberty of joining his adventure through China. Led on their long and disastrous journey to the mine by Shen, the three men come across something even more magical and enticing.

The Bird People in China

1998

Gonin poster
6.6

Five men plot to steal a large sum of money from the local yakuza, but everything does not go as planned and the men find themselves hunted down by contract killers.

Gonin

1995

Four Days of Snow and Blood poster
7.3

Based on the "2.26 Incident", an attempted coup d'état in Japan 1936, launched by radical ultra-nationalist parts of the military. Several leading politicians were killed and the center of Tokyo was briefly held by the insurgents before the coup was suppressed.

Four Days of Snow and Blood

1989

The Emperor in August poster
6.7

In July 1945, during the end of World War II, Japan is forced to accept the Potsdam Declaration. A cabinet meeting has continued through days and nights, but a decision cannot be made. The U.S. drops atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. General Korechika Anami is torn over making the proper decision and the Emperor of Japan worries about his people. Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki leads the cabinet meeting, while Chief Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu can't do anything, but watch the meeting. At this time, Major Kenji Hatanaka and other young commissioned officers, who are against Japan surrendering, move to occupy the palace and a radio broadcasting station. The radio station is set to broadcast Emperor Hirohito reading out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War.

The Emperor in August

2015

The Long Excuse poster
6.8

A recently widowed writer whose wife died in a bus crash comes to terms with his grief—or lack of it—in caring for the children of a working man who also lost his wife in the same accident.

The Long Excuse

2016

The Longest Night in Shanghai poster
6.2

A successful Japanese make-up artist collides with a tough-talking Shanghai taxi driver in this romantic dramedy that twists traditional roles by making the beauty expert a male and the cab driver a feisty female. Although he works in a glamorous industry, Naoki Mizushima can't help but notice that his life is anything but beautiful. Can the uncouth Lin Xi help him make over his life for the better?

The Longest Night in Shanghai

2007

Sumo Do, Sumo Don't poster
6.8

A college senior, Shuhei, is blackmailed by a professor into joining the school's sumo team. He is aided by a group of misfits who must team together to defeat their rivals or face disgrace and the disbandment of the sumo club.

Sumo Do, Sumo Don't

1992

Fancy Dance poster
6.9

Yohei, a punk rocker, becomes a Buddhist monk in order to inherit a mountain temple. Though initially rebelling against the tough monastic discipline, he learns to adjust. Then his girlfriend shows up, enticing him to return to his rock 'n' roll roots.

Fancy Dance

1989

Beppin Town poster
9.5

An amateur op (detective) with a career as a former legal instructor . From the search for a runaway daughter requested by Akiko "Beppin" to the murder case. A mystery drawn with a hard-boiled touch set in Kobe (some locations in Ashiya and Yokohama ). The scenery of Kobe before the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake is included in various background scenes, and you can see the buildings and scenery that can not be seen now.

Beppin Town

1989

Silence of the Sea poster
8.5

The day before his exhibition, world-renowned painter Tamura discovers that his own work contains a forgery. Meanwhile, the body of a woman with countless ukiyo-e tattoos is discovered at the sea. From the two incidents, the name of Ryuji emerges.

Silence of the Sea

2024

世にも奇妙な物語 秋の特別編 poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

世にも奇妙な物語 秋の特別編

1990

The Big Bee poster
5.7

Set in 1995. A helicopter, operated remotely, is hovering in the sky over a nuclear power plant. The power company, prefectural government and media all receive a fax. The fax contains a threat that if the nuclear power plant is not taken offline the helicopter will be dropped. 8 hours is given as the deadline. Making the situation even more dire, a young child is in the helicopter.

The Big Bee

2015

The Mystery of Rampo poster
7.1

Edogawa Rampo is a writer whose latest work is censored by the government, deemed too disturbing and injurious to the public to be allowed to be published. However, after burning his drafts, his publisher shows him a newspaper with an account of events just like his forbidden story. As the film progresses, fantasy and reality intermingle in a tale that draws heavily on influences from Poe and Stoker's Dracula. The film's strongly Expressionistic direction skillfully combines a variety of media (animation, computer-generated imagery, grainy black-and-white fast film stock, color negatives) for artistic effect.

The Mystery of Rampo

1994

Spy Sorge poster
6.6

A foreign spy using the Sorge alias is assigned to Tokyo the capital of Japan just prior to the outbreak of World War II and in the midst of the Japanese imperial ambitions in Eastern Asia. The spy becomes acquainted with a sympathetic communist who like he is attached to the ideals of freedom and rule of the masses. Sorge is able to feed the Soviet Union useful information regarding the Axis allies and their movements in Asia and beyond.

Spy Sorge

2003

Saiyūki poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Saiyūki

1993