Tadanobu Asano film nominated for Oscars!

Just briefly...

"Mongol", an epic film about Genghis Khan, starring Japan's Tadanobu Asano, is nominated for the Academy Award Foreign Language Film category.

The film's director is Russian, the filming was done in Mongol, and is credited as made by Russia/China/Mongol/Kazakhstan - VERY international film, indeed!!

I don't even know if Oscar presentation will be held or not - hope it does - but anyway, nice to see Tadanobu in a notable position.  This film is very little know in Japan.  I think it is not even distributed there.  Tadanobu never plays in TV dramas (Japanese actors usually plays both movies and dramas) and only plays in indie movies, so is relatively little known among Japanese people outside of film funs.  The only popular appearance is in TV commercials - he is in NTT Docomo (cell phone) and Toyota commercials.

I am not particularly a big fan of him, but I like some of his films.  He is in "Zatoichi" with (Beat) Takeshi Kitano, which I liked, and I also liked "Taste of Tea".  Both are available on Netflix, so you should check it out.  Others - rather dark indie films - are beyond my layman taste. 

Tadanobu is known also as a close buddy with Joe Odagiri among Joe fans.  I hope Joe gets some taste of international work from his buddy/mentor!