Biography
Versatile Japanese character actor So Yamamura made his first film appearance in 1946. Six years later he launched the directing phase of his career with the Eisenstein-influenced The Crab Canning Ship. In 1958, he made the first of a handful of English-language appearances in
John Huston's
Barbarian and the Geisha (1958). So Yamamura's later screen assignments include the roles of Admiral Yamamoto in the Japanese-American Pearl Harbor re-enactment Tora Tora Tora (1970) and taciturn auto executive Sakamoto in director
Ron Howard's 1985 comedy
Gung Ho. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide