MovieChat Forums > Zoku Sugata Sanshirô (1945) Discussion > European actors in the film

European actors in the film

posted 14 years ago by Movie_Nutt
7 replies | jump to latest

Seeing how this was made during World War II, I'm just wondering if the foreign actors were POWs forced to do this film.

[–] jadow81 14 years ago

No, they were not POWs.

According to the booklet of the Toho DVD,
they were legal foreign residents in Japan.

An agency known as "Uehara-gumi" (as it's based in Yoyogi-Uehara, Tokyo)
supplied such foreigners as "actors" back then.
Among them, Turks were the top majority,
but there were also Norwegians and Swedish.

[–] tor_h_tor 14 years ago

Ahhhhhhhhhh Ha! I wondered about "Where" they came from
Thank you, Jadow81.

[–] Movie_Nutt 14 years ago

Thanks a million! That really cleared it up.

[–] SamuraiNixon 13 years ago

Do you have a link to the Toho booklet?

[–] jadow81 13 years ago

Link? No.

Do you mean you want to read the original Japanese text?
In that case perhaps I can upload the scanned image of that portion.
(But don't expect me to upload the entire booklet.)

[–] bcamphome 8 years ago

The one who plays the American sailor in the opening scene of this film is none other than Yusuf Osman, who later had quite a career in Toho kaiju movies playing westerners, including one of Jerry Ito's lead henchmen in MOTHRA (1961). He's also in Sonny Chiba's THE STREETFIGHTER. He also appears in a later scene in SS PART TWO, as one of the sailors cheering the American boxer.

[–] 8 years ago

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