Masahiro Yoshino, 66, who leads a media consulting company with some 100 employees, may have left it late, but his dream of breaking into the movies was finally realized when a recent film funded by his firm won recognition abroad.

"Work in real life and dreams are the wheels a company needs to run on, and we should never abandon our dreams," said Yoshino, president of Media Research Inc., a Tokyo-based firm that specializes in IT consulting, translation, publishing and media arts.

Yoshino had almost no experience of acting before taking a role in a theatrical production at the age of 55. He continued to tread the boards, but it was not until this year that he made it onto the silver screen.