'Oyaji'

Action stars in Hollywood tend to have long shelf lives. Jackie Chan, born in 1954, is still making slick kung-fu moves in "Rush Hour 3," while Sylvester Stallone, born in 1946, returned to the ring this year in "Rocky Balboa." And Harrison Ford, born in 1942, is back again for a fourth round as Indiana Jones, though one wonders how he can keep audiences from making unfavorable comparisons with his younger, sprier self, last seen as Indy in 1989.

There is a limit, isn't there?

Tell that to J.J. Sonny Chiba (aka Shinichi Chiba), born in 1939, an action icon who joined the Toei studio in 1959 and has since appeared in more than 800 films and TV dramas. Best known abroad for his yakuza and karate pics of the 1970s, when he was hyped as the Japanese answer to Bruce Lee, Chiba was introduced to a new generation of international fans as sword-master Hattori Hanzo in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1."