Died at 87
male
Sonny Chiba (born January 23, 1939 - August 19, 2021), also known as Shin'ichi Chiba, was a Japanese actor and martial artist. Chiba was one of the first actors to achieve stardom through his skills in martial arts, initially in Japan and later before an international audience. Born in Fukuoka, Chiba played a variety of sports in high school, including baseball and volleyball. He also practiced gymnastics and participated at the National Sports Festival of Japan in his third year. When he was a university student, he learned martial arts, earning a black belt in Kyokushin Karate in 1965 and later receiving a fourth degree in 1984. Chiba's career began in the 1960s, when he starred in two tokusatsu superhero shows. In his first role, he replaced Susumu Wajima as the main character Kōtarō Ran/Seven Color Mask in Seven Color Mask (Nana-iro Kamen) in the second half of the series. However, his breakthrough role was in the 1974 film The Street Fighter. Before retiring, Chiba had also appeared in a number of English language American films, including Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Fast & Furious 3: Tokyo Drift (2006). Chiba died of COVID-19 complications at the hospital in Tokyo on 19 August 2021, at the age of 82. Description above from the Wikipedia article Sonny Chiba, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sonny Chiba
Homato Splinter
for Homato Splinter in The Ninja Turtles (2010-2011)
Suggested by s105042
Adapt from The Mirage Comic, the four Turtles were exposed to the Mutagen when after a traffic accident with their young owner as a bystander. The mutagen mutated them into a more humanoid form and more developed intellect. Splinter, a rat once owned by Ninjutsu master Hamato Yoshi, was also exposed. Splinter was fantastically smart and learned Ninjutsu by mimicking his master. Hamato Yoshi moved from Japan to New York in order to escape death after killing Oroku Nagi, another member of the Foot Clan, over the bitter love triangle between him and Tang Shen. However, Yoshi and Shen were found and killed by Nagi's younger brother Oroku Saki. Saki was the leader of the New York branch of the Foot Clan and had taken the identity of The Shredder. Yoshi's death had left Splinter homeless. Splinter happens to see the Turtles after the accident and adopts them. Within days, both Splinter and the Turtles grow to human size and develop speech. Splinter trained them in Ninjutsu, so they could avenge the murder of Hamato Yoshi and his wife. Splinter choose their names from a book about Renaissance artists: Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. The Turtles challenge Shredder and the Foot Clan on a roof top and defeat them. Shredder falls off the roof, with a grenade that blows up.
