‘Memories of Tomorrow ‘ actor Ken Watanabe donates portion of his salary to Japan’s Alzheimer’s Association.

Japanese actor Ken Watanabe is best known for his portrayal of ruthless warlords, samurais, and emperors – strong fighting men.

But it is his most recent role in Memories of Tomorrow playing a high-profile ad manager who is diagnoses with Alzheimer’s disease that has made the most impact on him. So much impact that he has decided to donate a portion of his salary from the film to the Japanese Alzheimer’s Association.

Ken Watanabe says “Alzheimer’s is a very serious problem and young Alzheimer’s sufferers still have energy and it progresses quickly. All the patients lost their memory but their emotion still remained with sadness and happiness, pain. I was involved with adapting and writing the script and before writing it we were concerned about how much of Alzheimer’s we could show in the film. We met real patients and their families, and nurses and doctors and visited nursing homes and we were very sensitive about which elements we could show. We wanted to show enough of the disease so that people who have experienced it would believe the story and also to show enough of the disease so that people who haven’t experienced it wouldn’t be afraid.” (PR-Inside.com)