Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, known for his roles in the Mortal Kombat franchise and the James Bond movie Licence to Kill, died in Santa Barbara on December 4, 2025, due to complications from a stroke. The 75-year-old actor played the sorcerer Shang Tsung in the 1995 movie adaptation of Mortal Kombat, based on the fighting video game franchise developed in 1992.According to Deadline, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa reprised his role as Shang Tsung in the 2013 television series Mortal Kombat: Legacy and Mortal Kombat X: Generations in 2015. He also lent his voice to the Mortal Kombat 11 video game, released in 2019, and served as the facial model for the 2023 role-playing game Mortal Kombat: Onslaught.During an interview with the AV Club in 2015, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa called the Mortal Kombat franchise "a huge part of [his] career," saying:“Oh, it was a pleasure. I think it just gives me an opportunity to refresh it for this new generation. And the game keeps getting bigger, so I think it’ll go on. It’s definitely a huge part of my career. But so are so many of these films I’ve been in. I’ve been in a lot of cult movies, but I’ve been very fortunate to have been involved in projects that people remember.”In addition to the Mortal Kombat franchise, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is also known for his work in License to Kill, Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, 47 Ronin, and Memoirs of a Geisha. Many of his roles incorporated martial arts, and the actor revealed he was trained in Kendo during an interview in 2010.“I was born in Tokyo and began training in Kendo when I was in junior high school. Then when I was five we moved to Fort Bragg, NC; and that’s when I got my first real lesson in how to use the martial arts. Being Japanese and living in the south during the ’50s was pretty tough,” Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa said. Exploring Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa's role as Shang TsungAccording to the character's wiki page on the Mortal Kombat fandom website, Shang Tsung is described as a powerful, soul-stealing, shape-shifting sorcerer and one of the three main antagonists of the franchise. He is also the host of the traditional Mortal Kombat tournament.The 1995 film adaptation of Mortal Kombat, directed by Paul Anderson, follows a group of heroes participating in a martial arts tournament to save the Earthrealm from the Outworld. According to the movie's wiki page on the fandom's website, Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, and Johnny Cage are chosen as the warriors from Earthrealm. Kang entered the competition to seek revenge against Shang Tsung, who had battled his younger brother, Chan Kang, and stolen his soul. In the movie's climax, Liu Kang challenges Shang Tsung to a battle and successfully kills him, freeing all the souls that the sorcerer had trapped, including his brother's.According to a well-known trivia about the movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was the director's first and only choice for portraying Shang Tsung. The actor reportedly showed up for his audition in a costume and read his lines while standing on a chair, as per IMDb.According to Deadline, the 1995 adaptation of Mortal Kombat, which had a budget of around $20 million, reportedly grossed $100 million. Following the movie's release, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa said the film's impact was due to the "build of the video games" in an interview at the time, adding:"It was the perfect timing in that Mortal Kombat as a video game, at the time we did the film, was on number four or five and that the impact of the film certainly had to do with the build of the video games."Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa attends the Amazon premiere screening for original drama series "Hand Of God" (Image via Getty)He also praised director Paul Anderson for the film's soundtrack, saying:"He [Anderson] was the first one in martial arts history to apply such music — really upbeat, driving metal music. You couldn’t sit still when you heard the music. And it matched the action so well."Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is reportedly survived by his wife, Sally, his children, Cana, Byrnne, and Calen, and grandchildren, River and Thea Clayton.