The Japanese actor Eiji Kusuhara played the sadistic Lieutenant Sato in the television series Tenko (1981-85), was one of the narrators on the cult show Banzai (2001) and appeared on stages across the UK and Europe in a variety of beguiling roles. He was one of the first professional Japanese actors active in London in the 1970s and enjoyed something of a monopoly on roles until he starred alongside a fellow countryman, Togo Igawa, in The Man Who Shot Christmas (1984). Eiji spent most of his adult life in Britain.