Daisuke Ryu is a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 born in Tokyo, Japan on 14 February 1957. He won the Japanese "best new actor" Blue ribbon award

Blue Ribbon Award

Blue Ribbon Award can refer to:* Blue Ribbon Award , an annual award presented by the Japan Railfan Club* Blue Ribbon Awards, annual Japanese film awards* Blue Ribbon Award of Excellence in Education, awarded by the Blue Ribbon Schools Program...

 for his performance as the great warlord Oda Nobunaga

Oda Nobunaga

was the initiator of the unification of Japan under the shogunate in the late 16th century, which ruled Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was also a major daimyo during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. His opus was continued, completed and finalized by his successors Toyotomi...

 in Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa

was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...

's movie Kagemusha

Kagemusha

is a 1980 film by Akira Kurosawa. The title is a term used for an impersonator. It is set in the Warring States era of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable...

(The Shadow Warrior). Other notable performances include Saburo Ichimonji in the famous Kurosawa epic Ran

Ran (film)

is a 1985 Japanese-French jidaigeki film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film starred Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-era warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons. It also stars Mieko Harada as the wife of Ichimonji's eldest son...

and the legendary warrior monk Benkei in Sogo Ishii

Sogo Ishii

', formerly is a Japanese filmmaker known for his striking visuals and sometimes outlandish subject matter.Ishii was born in Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, and is a graduate of Fukuoka Prefectural Fukuoka High School and Nihon University College of Art....

's critically acclaimed Gojoe (Gojō reisenki or The Spirit war chronicle).

He starred opposite Samantha Bond in the 1989 television serial The Ginger Tree, where he played Count Kentaro Kurihama. Based on the novel by Oswald Wynd

Oswald Wynd

Oswald Wynd was a Scottish writer, born in Tokyo of parents who had left their native Perth to run a mission in Japan.He attended schools in Japan where he grew up speaking both English and Japanese. In 1932 he returned with his parents to Scotland, and studied at the University of Edinburgh and...

, set in Japan at the turn of the century, it spans the period 1903 to the outbreak of the Second World War.

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