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11-11-2008 16:27

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

Masanobu Ando

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 (Ao no jidai, 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 a collection released by Peacedelic 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.