Overview
- Tagawa died on December 4, 2025, in Santa Barbara, with family accounts saying he spent his final hours surrounded by his children.
- Representative Margie Weiner confirmed the cause as stroke complications and issued a tribute carried by The Hollywood Reporter and AP.
- He became a pop‑culture fixture as Shang Tsung across film, television and games, voicing the role in Mortal Kombat 11 and lending his likeness to 2023’s Mortal Kombat: Onslaught.
- His breakout came with Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987), followed by roles in Licence to Kill, Pearl Harbor, Memoirs of a Geisha, Tekken and The Man in the High Castle.
- Family and representatives have not announced funeral or public memorial plans.