Takeshi Kaneshiro resurfaces in game ad

Reclusive actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, who was last seen in a tea advertisement in 2019, has resurfaced in a commercial for a mobile game.

Released on Wednesday (March 24), the one-minute clip for Lineage 2M shows the 47-year-old actor snowed in at a wooden cabin.

In a departure from the usual flashy advertisements, the stylised commercial was shot in black and white and did not feature any footage from the multi-player role-playing game.

Instead, Kaneshiro is shown doing mundane, solitary tasks such as tending to the fire, making coffee and playing Go against himself.

Only towards the end of the clip is it revealed that it is actually an ad for the highly anticipated mobile game, which was released in Japan and Taiwan on March 24 by gaming giant NCSoft.

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The Japanese-Taiwanese actor, who is known to be an avid gamer himself, had previously lent his voice to the Onimusha video games, voicing a samurai warrior known as Samanosuke Akechi.

He made the trip to Taiwan a month before the two-day shoot and reportedly indulged in local street food, such as rice cakes and vermicelli, and met up with friends and relatives.

The low-profile star, who has not been in a movie since 2017's romantic comedy This Is Not What I Expected, is slated to appear this year in Hong Kong crime thriller Sons Of The Neon Night.

The movie, which also stars Louis Koo and Tony Leung Ka Fai, wrapped in 2018 but had been massively delayed.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.