Yūsaku Matsuda
Also Known As: Yusaku Matsuda, Yūsaku Matsuda
Biography: Yūsaku Matsuda was a Japanese actor. He was born in Shimonoseki, to a Japanese father and a Zainichi Korean mother. He became an actor when he was 23 as a rookie police officer for the 1970s Japanese TV detective drama called Taiyō ni hoero! Apart from this role, his other defining role on television was in Tantei monogatari. He featured in many other TV shows and movies. He won the award for best actor at the 8th Hochi Film Award for Detective Story and The Family Game. He specialized in physical action movies. The 1989 movie Black Rain — directed by Ridley Scott and starring Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia— opened the door for Matsuda as an international actor. However, shortly after he made this movie, he died due to bladder cancer. He was survived by his second wife and three young children.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan
Adult: No
Birthday: September 21, 1949
Age: 75 years old
Gender: Male
Deathday: November 06, 1989
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A Homance

Overview: A homeless man suffering from memory loss is unbeatable in a fight. He becomes involved with the Yakuza. It is based on a manga by Carib Marley.
Genres: Drama Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1986-10-10
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Yokohama BJ Blues

Overview: When his police detective best friend is killed, down-at-heel private eye and part-time blues singer BJ gets the blame. He must start his own investigation to clear his name, but what he uncovers is a tangled web involving crooked cops, drug-dealing gangsters, the city's underground gay and biker scenes, and even his past.
Genres: Crime Mystery Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1981-04-25
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The Assassination of Ryoma

Overview: Story of the last three days in the life of Sakamoto Ryoma (1836-1867), the imperial loyalist who tried to unite the Choshu and Satsuma clans and prepared the way for the Meiji Restoration (1868).
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1974-08-03
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The Family Game

Overview: A sendup of the stereotypical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired. The tutor, played by the prototypical bad boy actor Matsuda Yusaku, proceeds to blow the entire family apart.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-05-04
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No Grave for Us

Overview: A plot to steal money from gangsters leads to trouble...
Genres: Action Crime Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-05-26
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Murder in the Doll House

Overview: Yūsaku Matsuda plays the part of a private detective in this modern day "who dunnit" mystery, full of suspense, thrills and chills.
Genres: Mystery Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-04-28
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And Then

Overview: Daisuke is supposed to be out looking for a respectable job and equally respectable wife. He is 30 years old and devotes his attention to music and literature; his family is wealthy and can support his interests. When his friend Hiraoka returns with his wife Michiyo, problems arise.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1985-11-09
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Detective Story

Overview: A private detective and a college student find themselves in hot water while investigating the murder of a night club owner.
Genres: Drama Romance Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-07-16
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Black Rain

Overview: Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.
Genres: Drama Action Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-09-22
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The Execution Game

Overview: The third movie in Tōru Murakawa's Game trilogy about a hitman. Narumi is set up by a mysterious woman. Abducted and tortured, Narumi is forced to take on a difficult job. The target is a veteran killer as good as him.
Genres: Thriller Action Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-11-17
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The Killing Game

Overview: The second movie of Tôru Murakawa's "Game" trilogy. After making a sensational hit, a hitman has gone into hiding for five years. When he comes back he bumps into two women that he has spared five years ago. Two rival yakuza bosses hire Narumi to kill the other. Will Narumi's sense of chivalry entrap him again?
Genres: Action Drama Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1978-12-02
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Proof of the Man

Overview: When an American is murdered in a Japanese inn, Tokyo police detective Munesue follows the trail of the killer to New York. There he is joined by a New York City detective named Shuftan and together they sort out the crime.
Genres: Drama Crime Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1977-10-08
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Target

Overview: Two killers revenge a wirepuller of the underworld in Yokohama.
Genres: Drama Action Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1980-04-19
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Wuthering Heights

Overview: Young Kinu Yamabe is drawn to low-born Onimaru, who is vital and charismatic, but viewed by his father as a demon. After her first period, Kinu suffers the fate of any women born near the Sacred Mountain: she must leave the Mountain and serve as a priestess.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1988-05-28
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Kagero-za

Overview: A 1920s playwright meets a beautiful woman who may be the ghost of his patron's deceased wife.
Genres: Romance Drama Mystery
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1981-08-21
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The Beast to Die

Overview: A policeman is murdered and his gun, stolen, used to commit the next crime. Detective Kashiwagi, who is leading the investigation, learns that the author of the killings “walks like a dead man”. Kashiwagi runs into Date, a former correspondent in the Vietnam War. There, Date discovered hell and something snapped in his mind.
Genres: Action Crime Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1980-10-04
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Dansen

Overview: Based on crime fiction novel written by Seicho Matsumoto.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1983-12-03
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The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf

Overview: A seemingly run-of-the-mill corporate salaryman leads a double life as a vicious criminal by night. In a delicious scheme of payback, he seeks to dominate the corporation that employs him by day.
Genres: Action Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1979-08-04
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Horror of the Wolf

Overview: Enigmatic teenager Akira Inugami is, by night, a powerful werewolf, who falls for a beautiful young teacher, and copes with a ruthless teen gang leader, whose yakuza father murdered Akira's parents years before.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1973-03-09
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The Classroom of Terror

Overview: Yusaku Matsuda plays an ex-boxer who killed an opponent during a fight. He is brought into a school to deal with a gang of disruptive students led by Hiroshi Tachi.
Genres: Thriller Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1976-07-01
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A Chaos of Flowers

Overview: Set in the Taisho era, which might be regarded as Japan's Hippie Phase, Hana no ran is a story about fashionable people without impulse control. Much of the action centers on a popular woman writer, the real-life poet Akiko Yosano, and her experiences among the literati of early 20th century Japan. Because of her independent, anti-war and often erotic poetry, she was a lightning rod for revolutionaries and other extremists, many of whom were destined to glamorous, yet ultimately pointless, deaths. The closest parallels might be the Byron/Shelley group or the people drawn to the Beat Generation.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1988-10-01
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The Most Dangerous Game

Overview: The first movie of Tôru Murakawa’s “Game” trilogy, in which an assassin hired to recover a kidnap victim becomes embroiled in a vicious power struggle between two large corporations over a sizable government defence contract.
Genres: Action Crime
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1978-04-07
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The Four Roughnecks

Overview: Gimme gimme gimme! Yusaku Matsuda and his gang are on the hunt for women, money and more money! Takeo Natsuki (Yusaku Matsuda) was just released from prison. He was the leader of three rascals; all they did was cause trouble. When they meet a girl whose father is resisting a forced eviction to make way for a construction site, they come up with their own plans to solve the problem.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1974-11-22
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Rape Hunter: Target Woman

Overview: Fuyuko, a married woman filled with grief after a miscarriage, has an affair with a younger man and finds herself involved in a robbery plot. For Fuyuko, who is at an impasse, there is no longer "family", "love" and "freedom".
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1980-02-02
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Murderer!

Overview: A cowardly samurai is sent as an official executioner targeting the clan's former sword instructor, a man whose sword and spear skills are second to none.
Genres: Action
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1976-10-16
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The Chaser

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Genres: No genres available
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1989-10-07
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Shi no dangai

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Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1982-01-26
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Tomodachi

Overview: Shinta is a sixth grader in Kawasaki City a troublemaker that dreams to become a soccer player. Yoshiko, a classmate who moved to Kawasaki from Iwate Prefecture two years ago, is a gloomy girl who suffers from asthma due to the polluted air in Kawasaki and is ostracized by her class. Shinta is placed next to Yoshiko in class and their stories will take a turn.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: ja
Release Date: 1974-07-24
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