He has appeared in dozens of films and television shows in character roles, including Midway, Gung Ho, Presumed Innocent, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, The Shadow, Jackie Chan Adventures, Samurai Jack, and Southland Tales.
This was followed by Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen (1970), The Chickencoop Chinaman (1972), and the role of Manjiro in Stephen Sondheim & Harold Prince's Pacific Overtures (1976) – he would go on to play Lord Abe in the 2004 Broadway revival.
He was in the short lived 1978 musical Barbary Coast, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play for his leading performance in Philip Kan Gotanda's The Wash.
He is closely affiliated with the East West Players and South Coast Repertory companies, most recently starring in a run of Julia Cho's Aubergine.
His film roles include Lt. Tomonaga in Midway, Saito in the 1986 comedy Gung Ho, Hiroshi Kawamura in the 1990 drama Come See the Paradise, the coroner "Painless" Kumagai in 1990's Presumed Innocent, Dr. Max Shinoda in 1993's Suture, Lord Norinaga in 1993's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, and in Old Dogs, alongside John Travolta and Robin Williams, as Japanese billionaire Yoshiro Nishamura.