Professor Toru Tanaka

Built like the proverbial Patton tank, Professor Toru Tanaka was arguably the successor to Harold Sakata as the archetypal Asian henchman who possessed incredible strength, and clobbered those foolish enough to tangle with him. Born Charles Kalani, he was a successful wrestler and served for over ten years in the US Armed Forces attaining the rank of sergeant. Tanaka first appeared playing a Japanese sumo wrestler on the TV series Little House on the Prairie, however his first film role pitched him as an insidious villain in the chop socky An Eye for an Eye (1981) in which he faces down Chuck Norris before being kicked through a large table. In total, Tanaka appeared in only 23 films including appearing alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger twice in The Running Man (1987) and Last Action Hero (1993).