Samurai star and musician Ken Matsudaira (松平 健, Matsudaira Ken, familiarly
shortened as Matsuken, born on 28 November in Toyohashi, Aichi) earned celebrity
status in Japan thanks to his starring role as Tokugawa Yoshimune in Japanese
television series The Unfettered Shogun, which began in the early 1970s and
continued for a quarter of a century. Along the way, he picked up a string of
other notable acting projects, assuming the role of Hōjō Yoshitoki in the 1979
NHK series Kusa Moeru, Shibata Katsuie in the 2002 NHK series Toshiie to Matsu
and, more recently, as Taira no Kiyomori...