Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa

I found out this morning, the same way most of us did: a quiet post on social media, then a flood of broken-heart emojis under that iconic Mortal Kombat poster. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is gone. 75 years old. A stroke. And just like that, the man who could silence a room with a single slow tilt of his head is no longer with us. If you grew up in the ’90s renting VHS tapes until the magnetic ribbon wore thin, you already know the moment. Mortal Kombat, 1995. The banquet hall. Shang Tsung, in that black-and-gold robe, leaning back in his throne like evil itself had decided to take a coffee break and enjoy the show. “Your soul is mine.” Four words, delivered with this velvet menace that made every 12-year-old in the room simultaneously terrified and obsessed. That was Cary. He didn’t just play the villain; he made villainy look […]

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