Kenji Kawai's bio

Kenji Kawai, born in Shinagawa, Tokyo, is a Japanese music composer, for motion pictures, anime movies, video games and televised programs. He has contributed to the musical scores for numerous films from Japan and other countries in Asia, working in film genres as diverse as anime, horror, sci-fi and historical epic. Among his credits are Tsui Hark's The Seven Swords and Wilson Yip's Ip Man; Mamoru Oshii's films The Red Spectacles, StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops, Ghost in the Shell, Mobile Police Patlabor and Avalon; the anime adaptations of Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½ and Maison Ikkoku; the live-action adaptation of Gantz; and Hideo Nakata's films Ring, Ring 2, Chaos, Dark Water and Kaidan.

Career

After dropping out of a nuclear engineering program at Tokai University, Kenji Kawai began studying music at Shobi Music Academy. However, he dropped out after half a year. With a few friends, he created the band Muse, playing fusion rock and participating in music competitions. Through competing in such contests, the band members became technically competent to enter the music industry and decided to part ways.

After leaving Muse, Kenji Kawai began composing music for commercials in his home studio. While recording music for radio actor and seiyuu Yūji Mitsuya he met music director Naoko Asari, who advised him to compose anime soundtracks. Some of his work for anime soundtracks can be found in Ranma ½, Ghost in the Shell and in the well-known recent (live action) film Death Note.

Following his success as an anime movies music composer, he became involved in live action movies. He contributed music to horror films: Ring, Ring 2, Dark Water, Japanese-Polish science-fiction film Avalon and the Hong Kong film Seven Swords.

He has worked on several projects with director Mamoru Oshii (both Headgear members) and has written scores for all of the Hideo Nakata's films. The most recent film featuring his music is 2009's Assault Girls by director Oshii. Kenji Kawai's music has received the Annie award and Hong Kong Film Award. In 2005, for Innocence: Kôkaku kidôtai (Ghost in The Shell 2: Innocence) he was nominated for an Annie award.

For the music found in Seven Swords and A Battle of Wits he was nominated for Best Original Film Score Awards at both the 25th and 26th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2006 and 2007. close