Santa Barbara, December 5, 2025
Tagawa after his Baptism. Photo: journeytoorthodoxy.com
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, the Japanese-American Orthodox Christian actor, reposed in the Lord on December 4, in Santa Barbara due to complications from a stroke. He was 75 years old.
Tagawa was baptized in Moscow in 2015, taking the name Panteleimon. His conversion to Orthodoxy came after he played the leading role in the 2015 Russian film Priest-San: Confession of a Samurai, portraying an Orthodox priest fighting the Japanese mafia to help a Russian girl. Tagawa worked alongside Russian actor Pyotr Mamonov, known for his starring role in the film Ostrov (Island).
In interviews following his Baptism, Tagawa explained his spiritual journey: “I was trying to find my own way all my life, my place in the world. When we came to America in my early childhood, we adopted Christianity. My brother and I attended a Sunday school in the USA. However, there is more form in American Christianity. And I was looking for content. Nowhere else did I manage to find such depth as in the Orthodox faith. Only now when I am 65 do I feel that I have managed to find the right place for me.”
“However, this decision was made from the heart, from the path which I walked through with suffering and pain, and from understanding that the heart and soul are actually the most important in life,” he reflected.
Priest-San: Confession of a Samurai. Photo: imdb.com
After visiting New Jerusalem Monastery, Tagawa remarked: “I saw with my own eyes how important holy sites are for Russians, how deeply you respect your faith.”
Born in Tokyo in 1950, Tagawa was best known to general audiences for his portrayal of the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat film franchise, beginning with the 1995 adaptation that grossed over $100 million. His prolific career spanned more than 150 film, television, and video game projects over four decades, including roles in The Last Emperor (1987), Memoirs of a Geisha, Pearl Harbor, and Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle (2015-2019), where he played Nobusuke Tagomi, the Trade Minister of the Pacific States.
Before becoming an Orthodox Christian, Tagawa had trained extensively in martial arts, beginning with Kendo in junior high school in Tokyo. At age 21, he studied traditional Japanese karate at the University of Southern California before returning to Japan to train under Master Nakayama with the Japan Karate Association. He later developed his own system called Chun-Shin, which he described as “a study of energy, completely without a physical fighting concept.”
Tagawa lived on the island of Kauai with his wife Sally, where they raised their two children. He is survived by three children, Calen, Brynne and Cana, and two grandchildren, River and Thea Clayton.
May his memory be eternal!
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