Biography
Isao Kimura, also credited as Kō Kimura, was a Japanese stage and film actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films, including several directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Born in Sendamachi, Hiroshima, on 22 June 1923, Kimura graduated from Bunka Gakuin in Tokyo in 1943. He joined the Haiyuza Theatre Company in 1946 and later co-founded the Youth Actor Club (Gekidan Seihai). His film roles include Yusa in Stray Dog (1949), an intern in Ikiru (1952), Katsushiro Okamoto in Seven Samurai (1954), a phantom samurai in Throne of Blood (1957) and Detective Arai in High and Low (1963). He also appeared in films by Mikio Naruse and in the Lone Wolf and Cub series.
Kimura died of oesophageal cancer in Tokyo on 4 July 1981.
