Masanobu Ando

Masanobu Ando  (安藤 政信, Andō Masanobu, born May 19, 1975 in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese actor and director.

For his second film, in 1996, he won the Film Academy of Japan's Best New Actor Award, starring in Takeshi Kitano's Kids Return.

Ando has extensive experience in both Japanese television drama and film and has played a large variety of different roles: mentally challenged (Innocent World), bank robber (Space Travelers, Drive), doctor (Transparent), ninja and samurai (Red Shadow), even a corpse (Monday). Out of all of Ando's characters, he is best known for his role as Kazuo Kiriyama, the heartless, psychopathic killer in the controversial film, Battle Royale (2000). He also played an art forger in the low-budget Battle Royale parody Tokyo 10+01 (2003).

As well as acting, Ando has been in Japanese ad campaigns for the popular Japanese snack food, Pocky, Toyota, and for DoCoMo mobile phones.

In 2003, he directed his first film, Adagietto. Sehr langsam, starring Japanese actress, Kumiko Aso. The short is included in Hiroyuki Nakano's Peacedelic compilation called Short Films. In it, he also stars in the short, 県道スター (loosely translated to "Prefectural road star").

In his spare time, he enjoys photography and shopping

Description above from the Wikipedia article Masanobu Ando, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Masanobu Ando is known for work in acting across film and television. New Release currently presents 18 verified screen credits connected to this profile.

Selected work includes 真田十勇士 SHADOWS OF THE TEN NINJA (2026), City Hunter (2024), Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning (2021), The Ship of Theseus (2020), Ushijima the Loan Shark The Final (2016), Sadako vs. Kayako (2016), No No Sleep (2015), Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2012).

The recorded credits span 1993 to 2026, including 16 movies and 2 TV shows. The filmography below lists available titles, release years and known roles.

This profile is updated as additional verified information becomes available.