Kōichi Satō (actor)

Sato was born in 1960 in Kagurazaka, Shinjuku, Tokyo. His mother was a geisha working there.^[5] His father was actor Rentarō Mikuni, and it was Mikuni ‘s third marriage.^[6]

Sato’s given name Koichi (浩市) was taken from one Kanji character each from the film directors name Hiroshi Inagaki (稲垣 浩) and Kon Ichikawa (市川 崑), with whom Mikuni was close at the time.^[7] Sato was often taken to the filming location by Mikuni since he was a child.^[6] However, Mikuni left home when Sato was in the fifth grade, and his parents officially divorced at the following year, when he was eleven years old.^[8] A scene where Mikuni took Sato to Jukkoku Pass^[9] in Izu, Shizuoka and said, "This is my last farewell to you. You go back to your mother's. I'm going to start a wandering life." is a well-known episode.^{[10][6][Note 1]}

Mikuni, known for his free-spirited personality, seldom came home, and his mother was often away from home, so Sato, who was an only child, grew independent from an early age and was used to being on his own.^{[6][Note 2]} Sato said that he didn't really recognize Mikuni as a father^[8] and that it was rather distressing to have dinner with him when he occasionally came home.^[8][6]

Sato left home during his high school years and entered the film department of Tama Art Academy, a vocational school attached to Tama Art University, but dropped out after one year.^[6] In 1980, while still in school, he was invited by an acquaintance of his father to make his acting debut in the NHK TV series Sequel to the Case, starring Tomisaburo Wakayama,^[13] and the following year he made his film debut in the movie The Gate of Youth. When he saw this film in the movie theater and saw his own image on the screen, he made a renewed decision to live his life as an actor.^[14]

His acting ability was recognized early on, and he went on to win a string of awards for the films he appeared in. For The Gate of Youth, he won Japan Academy Film Prize for Newcomer of the Year^[15] and the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Newcomer.^[16] He won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actor for KT and Utsutsu in 2002^[17] and Best Supporting Actor in 2023.^[18] He is the first actor since his father, Rentarō Mikuni, to win three Blue Ribbon Awards for individual awards.^[19]

Sato said that his encounter with the two directors was a major turning point for him. The two directors are Shinji Sōmai, director of the 1983 film The Catch and Junji Sakamoto, director of the 1994 film Tokarev.^[20][21] Director Somai taught him, "Sadness and anger are not one thing. Try to express your anger in ten different ways. You are not sad because you cry, but you laugh because you are sad."^[20] In Sakamoto's Tokarev, Sato played the role of an infant kidnapper, and he discussed the character of this villain with the director, expressing his opinions. The director acknowledged Sato's opinion, and they worked while discussing, which Sato said was very stimulating for him to act.^[14] He and Sakamoto hit it off and became a regular actor in Sakamoto's films and appeared in many of his films, including Face,^[22] KT,^[23] Children of the Dark,^[24] and Human Trust.^[25] Debates about acting can get heated, and Sato and Sakamoto once got into a fight in a bar and were interceded by Yoshio Harada, who was there.^[26] In 2023, Sato and his son Kanichiro co-starred in Sakamoto's film Okiku and the World.^[27]

Sato also said that his encounter with director Kōki Mitani opened up a new path for him.^[28] Sato took on the challenge of a full-fledged comedy in The Magic Hour, a 2008 film directed by Mitani, in which he had never acted before.^[29] The scene in which he plays Murata, an unsuccessful actor, comically keeps jumping on a trampoline^[30] and licks a knife "with a bizarre look on his face"^[31] as described in the script written by Mitani was so impressive that the scene was even imitated by a impersonator.^[32] This role, played by Sato, who had a strong image as a serious actor, became a topic of conversation, and the film led Sato to broaden his acting range into the field of comedy.^[28]

Since his debut, Sato used to insist what he thought as an actor and argued vehemently with the director on the set, as did his father.^[33] His attitude was sometimes described as cheeky.^[34] When he was over 30 years old, Sato received a letter from Mikuni one day. In the letter, Mikuni wrote only one sentence, "Ikasarete areba koso (生かされてあればこそ)." It meant, "You are kept alive by those around you."^[34] Initially, Sato did not quite understand what the words meant. Sato said that Mikuni probably did not think well of his attitude and behavior at the time, as if he was living by himself, and that in later years he gradually came to feel the weight of those words within himself.^[35] In addition to that, one day when he was over 40 years old, a veteran female staff member said to him, "You may think you have won by arguing with the director, but it is not only the director who has lost, but all the staff members on site are feeling miserable."^[36] He realized that the director represents the entire staff. Since then, he has taken the approach of having the director listen to his opinions in advance and discuss them until he is satisfied.^[36]

Since his debut, he has felt conflicted about being called "Rentaro Mikuni's son," and in his 20s and 30s he often felt anger at being called that no matter how hard he worked at acting and achieved results.^[37] For many years, Sato had been said to have a feud with Mikuni.^[38] Sato and Mikuni first worked together in 1986 in A Promise, but there was little contact between the two in that film. Ten years later, in 1996, the two co-starred in earnest on a film adaptation of a manga series Oishinbo. Mikuni, who was cast to play the role of Yuuzan Kaibara, nominated Sato to play his son Shiro Yamaoka.^[10] However, during the press conference, the two called each other "Mikuni-san" and "Sato-kun" as if they were strangers,^[41] and they were reportedly at odds over their acting theories, reporting to a father-son feud.^[38][42] However, since the content of the movie was also about a father-son feud, Sato did not dare to deny the "non-getting along" theory at the time.^[43] However, after Sato's son Kanichiro was born in 1996, Mikuni dearly loved on his grandson and showed up at his sports event at school, and the father-son rift is said to have disappeared gradually.^[6] When Mikuni died in 2013, Sato said of his father, "He was a terrible man as a father. The only thing that existed between him and me was the word 'actor'."^[44]

Before his debut, Sato told his father that he would become an actor. Mikuni's only response was "Ah, is that so."^[13] When he later asked, "Why did you say it like that?" Mikuni replied he had been concerned, "Ah, this guy is going to do acting. But what would this guy do if he didn't have anything?"^[45] Actually, after Sato's debut, Mikuni went around asking people who were going to work with Sato to take good care of his son.^[14] Later Sato's son, Kanichiro, later told him that he also hoped to be an actor, Sato understood the concern his father had felt about him. Sato could only say "Ah, so," like his father.^[45]

Sato began singing at the urging of senior actor Yoshio Harada, and since his first stage appearance in 2012 at the Yoshio Harada Memorial Live, he has regularly sung on stage with fellow actors.^[46] On December 10, 2021, his first album as a singer, Yakusha Uta 60 Alive was released on his birthday.^[47] According to Universal Music Japan, the genre in which he sings is blues.^[2] This album is a double CD and DVD set, and the DVD includes a live performance without an audience recorded at Blue Note Tokyo.^[48] Close actor friends Akira Terao, Ryudo Uzaki, Noritake Kinashi, Yōsuke Eguchi, and Yukiyoshi Ozawa also participated in the live performances as guests.^[46]

In his personal life, he married in his 20s and had one child, but later divorced. He remarried in 1993 to stage actress Ayako Hirota, and their first son, Kanichiro, made his acting debut in 2017.^[16] Accepting the wishes of his wife, who is a volunteer, he has been working with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's "Friend Home" program since around 2018 to temporarily care for children from infant homes and orphanages on weekends and during vacations through the foster care system.^[49]