 |
| Yutaka Nakajima in November 2019. Photo by Brett Homenick. |
Veteran Toei actress Yutaka Nakajima (sometimes credited as Doris Nakajima in the West) passed away at her Kanagawa Prefecture home on November 27 after a years-long struggle with colon cancer. She was 73.
Born on October 5, 1952, Ms. Nakajima co-stars alongside Sonny Chiba in The Street Fighter (1974) as Sarai Chuayut. She also can be seen in Teruo Ishii's The Executioner (1974) and The Executioner 2 (1974) as Emi, The Killing Machine (1975) as Kiku Sakamoto, and Detonation! Violent Games (1976) as Akemi.
 |
| Photo by Brett Homenick. |
Ms. Nakajima's other credits include Kazuki Omori's Orange Road Express (1978), Toru Murakawa's The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (1979), Haruki Kadokawa's The Last Hero (1982), and the J-horror shocker Tomie: Re-birth (2001) as Tomoko Hosoda.
I was able to meet Ms. Nakajima at an event in November 2019, Unfortunately, I don't have any particular memories from the meeting, other than the fact that she was pleasant and polite. I ended up reaching out to her management in early 2024, prior to my leaving Tokyo, to request an interview but never heard back. Considering that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer circa 2022, that's not a surprise.
The Street Fighter remains one of the most popular exploitation movies of the '70s, and Yutaka Nakajima played a substantial role in making that film the enduring success that it is. May she rest in peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment