Rentaro Mikuni is one of those people whose every virtue is matched by a vice. For each endearing, admirable act he can recall from his 86 years of life, he seems to have a sin to match.
For this reason the actor's ultimately failed attempt four decades ago to make a film in Afghanistan — an attempt that is the subject of a documentary television program airing on WOWOW in October — is quintessentially Mikuni.
But to understand the events that took place in central Asia in 1972, it is first necessary to turn back the clock even further, to the mid 1950s, when the square-jawed Mikuni was a star of the silver screen.