The son of a Japanese businessman and a Taiwanese homemaker, Takeshi Kaneshiro has two elder brothers, one is his senior by seven years, the other just by one. After graduating from Taipei Japanese Junior High School, he enrolled at English-based Taipei American School, which enabled him to converse in English. While he was studying there, he began doing television commercials and decided to quit school to pursue a singing and acting career. He is multilingual, fluent in Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien and Japanese, and to lesser degrees in English and Cantonese.

In 1992, Kaneshiro made his singing debut, entering the business with the nickname Aniki, meaning 'older brother' in Japanese. His debut album was Heartbreaking Night. Contracted to EMI, he wrote many of his own Mandarin and Cantonese songs. The following year, his popularity propelled him into acting and he no longer produces any commercial music.

His film debut was "Executioners" and this was followed by Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express" and a string of other Hong Kong films. Later, Kaneshiro starred in the Japanese television mini-series "God, Please Give Me More Time," allowing him to branch into Japanese films such as "Returner."

Kaneshiro's work, however, is more heavily concentrated in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 2008 and 2009 he starred in Red Cliff, a high budget film by Hong Kong director John Woo. He has also played the romantic lead in Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers" and starred alongside Jet Li and Andy Lau in "The Warlords." Kaneshiro has also become well known in the video game industry portraying the samurai warrior Samanosuke in Capcom's "Onimusha."

In 2003, Kaneshiro was featured in the magazine Time and was coined as becoming the Asian film industry's Johnny Depp.

Outside of the entertainment business, Kaneshiro has acted as a spokesperson and model for Emporio Armani as well as, Prada, Lifecard credit card company, VAIO personal computer, Honda, Lipice lips moisturizer, SonyEricsson, Pocari Sweat soft drink, Morinaga chocolate, Volvic, GEOS (eikaiwa) (language school), Petronas oil company, Japan Asia Airways, Hyundai Motor Company, Toyota MarkX ZiO, Mitsubishi Galant, NTT docomo the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan, NTT Yellow Pages, Shiseido, Lycos, UCC Ueshima Coffee Co., Kadokawa Shoten a well-known Japanese publisher based in Tokyo, Rice Burger, Roasted barley tea, One2Free (HK), and Kiwi cold drink, and the most recent Biotherm Homme since 2005.

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