Film world mourns loss of two legends

The film world mourned the loss of two towering figures of Asian cinema on Tuesday as Japan's celebrated actor Tatsuya Nakadai and Iran's internationally acclaimed performer Homayoun Ershadi passed away within hours of each other.

Nakadai, best known for his powerful portrayals in Akira Kurosawa's classics including 'Ran' and 'Kagemusha', died at the age of 92, his acting school Mumeijuku confirmed. The institution gave no further details about his death.

A towering presence in Japanese cinema, Nakadai's career spanned seven decades. He rose to fame under director Masaki Kobayashi in the anti-war trilogy 'The Human Condition' and went on to become Kurosawa's leading man after Toshiro Mifune. Among his most memorable roles was that of the doomed warlord in 'Ran', Kurosawa's epic adaptation of Shakespeare's 'King Lear'. Nakadai also appeared in 'Yojimbo' and 'Kagemusha', the latter winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1980.

Beyond acting, he founded Mumeijuku with his late wife, actress Yasuko Miyazaki, in 1975 to train future generations of actors, including Koji Yakusho, who later won best actor at Cannes in 2023. Nakadai continued performing until this year, recently appearing on stage in Japan's quake-hit Noto region.

In Tehran, tributes poured in for Homayoun Ershadi, who died aged 78 after a battle with cancer. Ershadi gained international acclaim for his haunting performance in Abbas Kiarostami's Palme d'Or-winning 'Taste of Cherry' (1997), which launched his global career.

Trained as an architect before turning to film, he later appeared in 'The Kite Runner' (2007), 'A Most Wanted Man' (2014), and 'Zero Dark Thirty' (2012). Iran's House of Cinema hailed him as a "noble and thoughtful actor", while government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani called his passing "deeply sorrowful".

Both men leave behind legacies that reshaped Asian and world cinema.