Kenya Sawada

Kenya Sawada
Born
Kanagawa, Japan
NationalityJapan
OccupationActor

Kenya Sawada (澤田 拳也, Sawada Ken'ya, born January 28, 1965) is a Japanese film actor who has appeared in numerous movies, primarily in Hong Kong productions. He has occasionally been credited simply by his first name.

Sawada was born in Kanagawa. His first appearance was in a Japanese film Hey Oilers: The Legend of Skyline. Sawada's only other Japanese productions include Buyûden and Hasami as well as the 1998 Hong Kong-Japanese production B gai waak. Instead, Sawada has appeared more prominently in numerous Hong Kong productions, beginning with a minor role in the 1995 Jackie Chan film Thunderbolt. He also appeared in the 2009 Jackie Chan film Shinjuku Incident.

He played Captain Sawada in the Stephen de Souza-directed Street Fighter film, based on the fighting game series by the same name. Sawada appeared as part of a promotional deal with Capcom.[1] Initially, Capcom intended Sawada to play Ryu in the film, however, his poor knowledge of English at the time made the casting difficult.[2][3]

Like most of the cast he also did the screen-capture for the video-game rendition based on the movie, Street Fighter: The Movie. Sawada has also been involved in the Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie as a script coordinator and has a writing credit for the Street Fighter II V anime series.

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
1990 Jipangu Tobatsu
1991 Hey Oilers: The Legend of Skyline Hanayama Direct-to-video
1994 Street Fighter Captain Sawada
1995 Thunderbolt "Saw"
1996 Somebody Up There Likes Me Yamada Motokazu
1998 B gai waak Detective Takami
2000 Devils on the Doorstep (Guizi lai lee) Inokichi Sakatsuka
2001 Ye long Ryuya Tanaka
2003 Buyûden Azuma Goro
2009 Shinjuku Incident (San suk si gin) Nakajima Hiromasa
2010 Yip Man chin chyun Kitano Yukio
2011 The Great Magician Mitearai
2012 Hasami Ken'ya
2018 Hidden Man Nemoto Ichiro
2018 Huang Fei Hong: Nu hai xiong feng Hattori Ichiro

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1992 Tokugawa Buraichō Ep. 8
1993 Itoshi no Deka Attack group member Ep. 19

Video games

Year Title Role Notes
1995 Street Fighter Captain Sawada
1995 Street Fighter Captain Sawada

References

  1. ^ Stephen E. de Souza, Street Fighter (1994) commentary
  2. ^ "Exclusive Interview: Byron Mann (Street Fighters Ryu)". Bristol Bad Film Club. 17 March 2015. Retrieved December 2, 2019.
  3. ^ "Could Street Fighter VI Bring Back the Franchise's Most Obscure Character?". CBR. 2021-08-10. Retrieved 2023-06-26.