His ‘Shōgun’ warrior lives by a (very flexible) moral code, says Tadanobu Asano

He boils a man alive in the first episode of FX’s vaunted 10-part series “Shōgun,” but somehow we’re still charmed by Kashigi Yabushige, played by Tadanobu Asano. I would say he probably grew up a little bit throughout the series, but his basic animal instincts haven’t changed.” He’s a weasel with a sword, the drunken-samurai trope like the tragic buffoon Kikuchiyo, portrayed by the great Toshiro Mifune in the Akira Kurosawa classic “Seven Samurai.” “I talked to the costume department and they were like, ‘Yabushige’s a rocker.’ I was delightfully surprised that we were going in that direction. “With a mix of Japan, Canada and all of the world,” he says, referring to the location shoot in British Columbia, “I’m saying it in Japanese without them seeing any subtitles. If I didn’t get a reaction, then I go through the process of re-messaging everything when I go back home for the next day.” Homesick throughout the shoot, he leaned on his old friend Sanada, with whom he worked on the Keanu Reeves film “47 Ronin.” “In ‘Shōgun,’ Yabushige was a handful for Toranaga, and I think even for me, personally, I was probably a handful for him too,” Tadanobu sighs.