BIO

Isao Kimura | 木村功 was born in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1923.   He moved to Tokyo in 1941 intending to focus on his university studies, but he became immersed in the school's drama club.

Kimura was drafted into the Japanese Navy in 1944 and served a year before returning to Japan at the end of World War II to find his entire family wiped out after an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

He made his film debut in Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog (1949).   After more than 60 motion pictures, Kimura’s last film was released in 1974, although he continued to appear on television.

In the the 1960s, Kimura became involved in modern Japanese theatre and was managing a troupe through the 1970s.   The theatre company was deeply in debt and ultimately went bankrupt in 1979.   He became personally liable for a large sum of money.

Kimura wed Kozue Kunie in 1948.   She would write a best-selling memoir after her husband's death.

He died of esophageal cancer in Tokyo, in 1981.   Kimura was 58 years old.

NOTED FILMS