
Acting
Oct 7, 1911
Nagasaki, Japan
Akitake Kōno
Acting
Biography
Akitake Kōno (河野 秋武 Kōno Akitake, 8 October 1911 – 17 March 1978) was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than sixty films from 1943 to 1973. Kōno started acting with the Zenshinza theater troupe before joining the Toho studio in 1942. Mostly a character actor, he appeared in films by directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi as well on television.
Feature Films (163)

Keiko and Toshiko are sisters who leave their mountain home, where their parents live in a hydroelectric plant company house to study in the city. They stay with their kind-hearted aunt and her jovial but heavy-drinking carpenter husband. Keiko, the 17-year-old eldest of five siblings, is gentle and responsible, while 14-year-old Toshiko is lively and childlike, affectionately called "Konchi."
Sisters

A true semi-documentary drama depicting a record of a sheriff's challenge to the vivid evil of a sailor who embarked on a single underworld to uncover the crime of an inhumane international prostitution organization called "Japanese women's smuggling."
Flesh Smuggling

In 11th-century feudal Japan, following the exile of an idealistic governor, his wife and children are separated by slave traders; the children, Zushio and Anju, are sold into brutal servitude under the cruel bailiff Sansho.
Sansho the Bailiff

After handing in a report on the treatment of Chinese colonial labor, Kaji is offered the post of labour chief at a large mining operation in Manchuria, which also grants him exemption from military service. He accepts and moves with his newlywed wife Michiko, but when he tries to put his ideas of more humane treatment into practice, he finds himself at odds with scheming officials, cruel foremen, and the military police.
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love

A hotheaded youth in 1880s Meiji Japan apprentices to judo master Shōgorō Yano, trading brute jujutsu bravado for discipline and humility. As Sanshirō matures, he proves judo’s spirit against old-guard challengers—including a deadly duel—while falling for his vanquished opponent’s daughter. Based on the novel by Tsuneo Tomita, son of Tomita Tsunejirō, the earliest disciple of judo.
Sanshiro Sugata

A fugitive lord and his six retainers disguise themselves as monks to bluff their way through a hostile checkpoint.
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail

After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.
No Regrets for Our Youth

A few years after his breakthrough, Sanshiro resumes his path to judo mastery—testing his discipline against an American prizefighter and later facing vengeful karate brothers. As rival schools and public spectacle push him toward violence, he must reconcile strength with restraint and the true spirit of his art.




