Kensaku Watanabe had his big career breakthrough when he was chosen to play the lead in the Japanese national TV drama series called "Dokugan ryu Masamune". He played a samurai leader hero, making him a household name in Japan. In 1989, he collapsed while filming a movie in Canada due to leukemia, made a miraculous comeback & co-starred with Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai (2003), which pushed him to the center stage of Hollywood. He appeared as Hiroto Katagiri in the ten-part HBO series Tokyo Vice
