Masanobu Ando

Masanobu Ando  安藤 政信 Andō Masanobu born May 19 1975 in Kawasaki Kanagawa Prefecture Japan is a Japanese actor and director For his second film in 1996 he won the Film Academy of Japans Best New Actor Award starring in Takeshi Kitanos Kids Return Ando has extensive experience in both Japanese television drama and film and has played a large variety of different roles mentally challenged Innocent World bank robber Space Travelers Drive doctor Transparent ninja and samurai Red Shadow even a corpse Monday Out of all of Andos characters he is best known for his role as Kazuo Kiriyama the heartless psychopathic killer in the controversial film Battle Royale 2000 He also played an art forger in the lowbudget Battle Royale parody Tokyo 1001 2003 As well as acting Ando has been in Japanese ad campaigns for the popular Japanese snack food Pocky Toyota and for DoCoMo mobile phones In 2003 he directed his first film Adagietto Sehr langsam starring Japanese actress Kumiko Aso The short is included in Hiroyuki Nakanos Peacedelic compilation called Short Films In it he also stars in the short 県道スター loosely translated to Prefectural road star In his spare time he enjoys photography and shopping Description above from the Wikipedia article Masanobu Ando licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia