Each Onimusha protagonist hails from a strong cinematic background.

It’s felt like ages since Capcom has acknowledged Onimusha, but with the recent release of Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny’s remaster and the announcement of a continuation with Onimusha: Way of the Sword, it appears as if Capcom is ready to unsheathe this deadly series for a new audience. Revered during the sixth console generation for its adaptation of Resident Evil-styled controls and mix of supernatural combat and historical context, the Onimusha series mostly fell by the wayside following the fourth installment, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. Capcom even included characters in some crossovers (Sōki appeared in Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom), but until the first game received a remaster seven years ago, fans were left in the cold for a decade.

Since Onimusha is  back in the public consciousness, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at one of its more overlooked aspects. Western fans may not have picked up on it, but the main characters in the first two Onimusha titles are based on popular Asian actors. Onimusha 3: Demon Siege even included a French actor as its deuteragonist alongside returning protagonist Samanosuke Akechi, and the upcoming Way of the Sword continues this trend. As innovative as the games are with regards to action gameplay, Onimusha also pays homage to not only samurai films, but cinema across the world.

In honor of Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny’s re-release, I wanted to highlight the actors in each game and try to explain why their likenesses were chosen. To my knowledge, Capcom has never publicly stated why it picked these specific actors, but with Toshiro Mifune set to be the main character for Way of the Sword, it’s probably not hard to guess.

Onimusha: Warlords – Takeshi Kaneshiro

Capcom put a young actor in the lead role at the start of the series. Still relatively unknown in the West at the time, Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro would quickly make a name for himself in the Hong Kong film industry after starring in director Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels. This film kick-started Kaneshiro’s career and led to him starring alongside prominent martial artists such as Jet Li (in Dr. Wai in “The Scripture with No Words”), Yuen Biao (1997’s Hero), and Sammo Hung (Don’t Give a Damn). 

Despite being of Taiwanese and Japanese heritage, Kaneshiro has stuck to mainly Chinese productions throughout his now 33 year career. His big break was actually a Mando-pop album titled Heartbreaking Night released in 1992, one year before he would star in Johnnie To’s Executioners. From what I can find, he wouldn’t star in a Japanese production until the 1998 TV drama Precious Time. At first glance, you’d likely be confused as to why Capcom would want a prominent actor from the Hong Kong film industry for its new series, but I have a theory.

Not only was Kaneshiro only 27 in 2001, he embodied the spirit of Japanese passion. In nearly all of his Chinese, Taiwanese, or Hong Kong productions, Kaneshiro portrays a Japanese man dealing with the cultural differences stemming from his mixed heritage and upbringing. Despite how defeating that could be, Kaneshiro’s characters never lose sight of their humanity or their central identity. Kaneshiro was also unafraid of shedding his teen idol image, often playing against type and sometimes even drifting into villainous roles. Kaneshiro embodies the Japanese spirit of “shokunin,” which is typically applied to artisans. One of the main components is a dedication to mastery and the pursuit of perfection.

Western fans likely know Takeshi Kaneshiro from 2004’s House of Flying Daggers. Sharing the screen with Andy Lau (another hugely popular Hong Kong actor) and Zhang Ziyi (most famous stateside for her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), it would be the only collaboration Kaneshiro had with legendary director Zhang Yimou. He would eventually become a semi-frequent collaborator of John Woo’s, starring in four films (Red Cliff Part 1, Red Cliff Part 2, The Crossing, and The Crossing 2) before mostly retreating from the public eye. Recently, Kaneshiro starred in the long-gestating Sons of the Neon Night, which premiered at Cannes on May 17, 2025.

Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny – Yusaku Matsuda

For Japanese audiences, Yusaku Matsuda is a man who needs no introduction. Heralded as one of the most famous and influential actors of the 1970s, his style and personality are the inspiration for a number of famous anime characters, including Fist of the North Star’s Kenshiro and Cowboy Bebop’s Spike Spiegel. He was a tremendously popular star in the action genre and while he would branch out into different roles during the 80s, his life was tragically cut short in 1989 at the age of 40 due to bladder cancer. His final role would be in the bizarre ‘89 Ridley Scott film Black Rain alongside Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, and another hugely famous Japanese actor, Ken Takakura.

In Onimusha 2, Matsuda’s likeness was used not only to pay homage to his importance as an actor, but to embody the spirit of one of Japan’s most famous historical figures: Yagyu Jubei. Little is truly known about the man, but he was a samurai from Japan’s feudal era with a lineage stemming from the Yagyu Clan and was revered for his swordsmanship. Yagyu’s skills would see him become an official teacher to the Tokugawa Shogunate, but he was eventually dismissed for an undisclosed reason. It seems that fact has become entangled with fiction, because despite there being no record of why he left the shogunate, rumors have suggested he traveled Japan for a decade, became disillusioned with teaching, or acted as a spy off the record. In one way, you can read the plot of Onimusha 2 as Yagyu’s lost history.

Again, there is no stated reason for why Capcom chose Matsuda as the model for Jubei in-game, but it’s really not hard to figure out why. Both are influential to their respective periods of Japanese history and both have been mythologized in the years since their passing. While it is maybe a little suspect to use a dead actor’s likeness for a video game, Onimusha 2 certainly keeps its character in the spirit of roles that Matsuda played. He typically portrayed brash characters that were either assassins, historical figures, or loose cannons. In the film Ryoma Ansatsu (which roughly translates to The Assassination of Ryoma), Matsuda was cast as legendary folk hero Ryoma Sakamoto, who was one of the most prominent samurai during Japan’s Bakumatsu period.

Matsuda’s films are not readily available in the Western world, but there are some rather easy recommendations one can make. The solid Game Trilogy of films (The Most Dangerous Game, The Killing Game, and The Execution Game) has a Blu-Ray release in both the US and Europe and it contains three of his most accessible features. The fantastic The Beast to Die recently received a Blu-Ray release, and it features one of Matsuda’s most unhinged performances. He also starred in the rather novel Japanese adaptation of Wuthering Heights from 1988 that transplanted Emily Bronte’s story to medieval Japan. If nothing else, watching Cowboy Bebop is a good way of understanding how cool Matsuda was as Spike Spiegel is a perfect embodiment of the characters he tended to play.

Onimusha 3: Demon Siege – Jean Reno

Onimusha 3: Demon Siege is a bit of a wild swing for the franchise when it comes to setting and story. Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny failed to make a splash in the West and as such, Capcom sought to make the final chapter of its saga with an emphasis on Western sensibilities. This is where things like time travel and a relatively contemporary setting come from. Since sales were particularly dire for the second game in Europe, Capcom picked Paris, France as the setting for the third game to hedge its bets. We also finally have an answer for why a particular actor was chosen, with French star Jean Reno portraying Jacques Blanc because the game is set in Paris. It’s really that simple.

Not wishing to simply lend out his face, Reno was involved in the motion capture process for Onimusha 3. In an old interview with 1up, producer Keiji Inafune said, “We wanted to get the way he walked, the way he moved, so that was one reason. But the main reason, and I know this is going to sound weird, but we wanted to get the actual feeling that Jean Reno was in the game.” While he likely didn’t do some of the more complex combat maneuvers, for the most part Reno was completely involved with the process. He even voiced his character’s French dialogue, though was unable to do the English dub due to time constraints.

Now, I wouldn’t call Reno a household name in Hollywood, but he has had a tremendously prolific career dating back to the late ‘70s. People in the US likely know him from his outstanding turn in Leon: The Professional, which not only brought him international attention but helped launch the career of Natalie Portman. Even before that, he starred in La Femme Nikita, which was a hit in the US and established Luc Besson as an action director. Following Leon, he would mostly stick to English-speaking roles, showing up alongside Tom Cruise in the first Mission: Impossible and starring alongside Robert De Niro in Ronin, while occasionally jumping back to France for projects. He even worked on the French dub for films such as Porco Rosso, The Lion King, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Reno still acts to this day, though he hasn’t been in a mainstream film since the 2000s. You can catch him in Spike Lee’s excellent 2020 film Da 5 Bloods, though, and that’s certainly better than fizzling out with generic Hollywood fare.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword – Toshiro Mifune

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is scheduled for a 2026 release, and thanks to its presence at Summer Games Fest this year, we know that Capcom is aiming to make combat feel heavy with some similarities to FromSoftware’s action design. The game will reportedly be around 20 hours long, will not feature an open-world structure, and will retain puzzle solving as one of its core elements. The story will incorporate elements of the legend of Musashi Miyamoto, including various opponents he faced off against, to flesh out its leading man. It will also star the legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune as its main character, which is a very deliberate move by Capcom to appeal to Japanese audiences.

In an interview with Famitsu, Way of the Sword producer Akihito Kadowaki and director Satoshi Nihei stated it was an absolute requirement that Mifune be the main character for this new installment. Since the game will put players into the role of Musashi Miyamoto, Capcom wanted an actor that could capture the appearance of a real samurai fighting through mud and smelling like hell. Mifune had a long career of doing just that, being a frequent collaborator of the acclaimed Akira Kurosawa and starring in various samurai films throughout the ‘50s, ‘60s, and even ‘70s.

Chances are, anyone reading this likely already has an idea of who Mifune is. You may not have realized it beforehand, but his most cherished role is that of Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai. He also portrayed Musashi Miyamoto in the Samurai trilogy (consisting of Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto, Samurai 2: Duel at Ichijoji Temple, and Samurai 3: Duel at Ganryu Island), of which you can readily find a Blu-Ray from Criterion. I’m a big fan of one of his earliest films, 1948’s Drunken Angel, which was the start of his streak of 16 collaborations with Kurosawa. Another notable performance was in Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, where Mifune plays a swordsman very similar to his character from Yojimbo and Sanjuro (Ed. note: if you’ve only seen Yojimbo and not Sanjuro, you should rectify that immediately). It was a crossover event before that idea became so widespread.

Now, before the advent of the internet and before Criterion was putting out snazzy editions of Kurosawa’s work, American audiences likely came to know of Mifune from his role in the 1980 TV production of Shogun. In that adaptation, he played the role of Yoshii Toranaga alongside Richard Chamberlain’s John Blackthorne. While the historical accuracy of that particular adaptation is pretty suspect, Mifune lent an air of credibility to the proceedings that elevated it beyond typical TV schlock of the time. It was also a good display of Mifune’s range. He was best known for playing a gruff badass who could cut down any other samurai, but could easily play more relaxed or comedic roles too.

__

With pre-release marketing for Onimusha: Way of the Sword going out of its way to mention Toshiro Mifune by name, I believe Capcom is ready to embrace the strong cinematic legacy that the Onimusha series has. In the early ‘00s, it was much harder to come by foreign media, especially legacy films that were stuck on region-locked VCDs or DVDs. That is likely why Capcom never made it a point to explain who the actors were behind its lead characters. Foreigners simply wouldn’t know those people. 

Nowadays, the advent of streaming services and digital distribution platforms has made it easier for people interested in stories from other countries to seek out the rich history and culture that makes them so unique. I hope you might seek out some of these films to learn not only about the respective actors, but the mythology behind the stories they tell.