
Wakayama, Japan
Sabu (サブ, Sabu, born November 18, 1964) is the pseudonym of Japanese actor and director Hiroyuki Tanaka. Born in Wakayama Prefecture, Sabu studied at an Osaka fashion school before deciding to go to Tokyo to become a professional musician. It was suggested he try acting and in 1986 he made his film debut in Sorobanzuku. He earned his first starring role in the 1991 World Apartment Horror, a live-action film directed by Katsuhiro Ōtomo of Akira fame. Working from a script he wrote himself, he made his directorial debut with the 1996 Dangan Runner, a film that set his early style of "quirky action-comedies propelled by characters who hurtle headlong though squirming narratives steered more by the forces of incidence and coincidence than the actions of the protagonists themselves." Shin'ichi Tsutsumi played the lead in Sabu's first five films. Blessing Bell, starring Susumu Terajima (who has played minor roles in nearly all of Sabu's films), was a turn away from his kinetic, parodic, and black comedy narratives, and earned the NETPAC Award at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival. Later films featured the J-pop band V6. In 2009, he directed The Crab Cannery Ship, a modern adaptation of a classic of Japanese proletarian literature written by Takiji Kobayashi. He has continued to work as an actor, such as in Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer (2001). His film Chasuke's Journey was selected to be screened in the main competition section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

as Patron

as Samurai #1
2016

as Kaneko
2001

as Patron
2003

as Patron
2006

as Shusuke Shimada
1995

as Kurokawa
1997

as Sekikawa
1996

as Assassin
1996

as Fujikuro (as Sabu)
1994

as Ita
1991

1992

1993
as Self
2013

as Samurai #1
2016

as Self
2013

as Self
2013

as Self
2007

as Patron
2006

as Patron
2003

as Kaneko
2001

as Bank Robber
1998

as Kurokawa
1997

as Assassin
1996

as Sekikawa
1996

1996

1996

1995

as Shusuke Shimada
1995

as Fujikuro (as Sabu)
1994

1994

as Kyoichi Nakazawa
1994

1994

1993

1993

1992

1991

as Ita
1991