Actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, known for his iconic depiction of Mortal Kombat villain Shang Tsung, has died

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, a prolific character actor known to gamers for his portrayals of Mortal Kombat’s evil sorcerer Shang Tsung, has died. A Variety report says Tagawa’s death was the result of complications from a stroke he suffered on December 4.Tagawa was a classic ‘that guy’ actor, with IMDB listing credits in more than 140 films and television shows going back to an uncredited appearance in the 1986 Kurt Russell classic Big Trouble in Little China. It didn’t take long for bigger roles to follow: I recall seeing him first in an episode of Babylon 5 (yes, I am a B5 nerd), in which he played a cool, quiet, capable guy who took care of a problem while other people focused on other things—a description that could probably be applied to many of his roles, really.Tagawa appeared in everything from big-budget films to long-forgotten TV series over his long career. In 1987 he was “Asian buyer” in an episode of MacGyver and “Thug in Flashback” in the low-budget action flick Bulletproof; he also had a speaking role as Chang in The Last Emperor, which won nine Academy Awards that same year. He turned up in everything from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Walker, Texas Ranger to Planet of the Apes, Pearl Harbor, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding.That ‘ask nicely and he’ll say yes’ approach carried all the way through to the later years of his career: From 2015-2018 he was a regular in the acclaimed Amazon Prime series…

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