Colonel Saito

Way too young.

Now, Sessue Hayakawa as Colonel Saito.

Y'all, Sessue Hayakawa used to be so hot.

[laughs]

Hmm.

You know? He just like hated the limitation of those roles, and he eventually created his own company, Haworth or Haworth Pictures, partly to gain control over how Japanese characters were portrayed, producing 23 films in roughly three years.

By the time David Lean had cast him as Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Hayakawa was 71 years old and decades removed from his heartthrob era.

He could have easily become a one-dimensional villain, but Hayakawa gives him a lot of pride, humiliation, fear, vulnerability, and he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.