Talk about type-casting!

Fans of Japanese cinema, especially samurai and gangster movies, may enjoy this profile of Japanese actor Seizo Fukumoto, who apparently has died onscreen more then twenty thousand times. Goodness, that's a lot of dying. I wonder if people recognize him on the street and ask him to "die" on the spot, kind of like how people would approach DeForest Kelley and ask him to say "He's dead, Jim".

Fukumoto's most high-profile role, apparently, was in last year's The Last Samurai, in which he does, in fact, die. (I haven't seen the movie, but the article spoils it.) Come to think of it, I wonder if South Park's Kenny is a small tip-of-the-hat to this man? I know that the South Park creators are well-steeped in an astonishing amount of pop-culture. Anyone know?