Masanobu Ando

Career

After finishing school, Masanobu Ando wasn't sure what he wanted to do. In 1994, a talent scout spotted him on the street and gave him an acting offer, launching his career. He broke out in his first movie, Takeshi Kitano's Kids Return (1996), where he played Shinji, a high school dropout who takes up boxing with his best friend. Ando became a well-known young actor in Japan during the late 1990s, though his career slowed in the 2000s, with him appearing in just one or two films a year.

He is best known internationally for playing the psychopathic killer Kazuo Kiriyama in Kinji Fukusaku's dystopian gore hit Battle Royale (2000). In 1998, he traveled to Russia to film the Japanese show Seinen wa Kouya wo Mezasu, journeying from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Ando later co-starred with Ryuhei Matsuda in Takashi Miike's Big Bang Love, Juvenile A, had a supporting role in Shinya Tsukamoto's Nightmare Detective, and appeared in Katsuhito Ishii's Smuggler.

He has also participated in the Toronto Film Festival. Around 2016, marking twenty years since he entered the film industry, Ando made a comeback, starring in several films such as Sailor Suit and Machine Gun: Graduation, Gonin Saga, and Sadako vs. Kayako.