Koji Yano, a Japanese actor in his 30s well-known in China but unknown in his home country, has played a series of parts in Chinese movies as a "Guizi" (devil), a term still used in China for members of the Japanese military before and during World War II.

Yano, who hails from Higashi-Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, worked as a movie extra in Japan after graduating from senior high school before moving to Beijing in 2001.

He decided to go to China after playing the part of a Japanese student studying in China in a Chinese movie shot the previous year. Its lively set attracted him.