The working man in “Woodsman,” directed by Shuichi Okita, is a grieving widower and disappointed father whose life is transformed by his accidental contact with the visiting movie crew; Mr. Yakusho’s eyes register the wonder his character feels as he sees himself on film for the first time. In Masato Harada’s “Chronicle of My Mother” (2011), a stately and elaborate period piece that consciously pays homage to Yasujiro Ozu’s classic family dramas, we watch the writer played by Mr. Yakusho as he continually adjusts his feelings toward his mother, who farmed him out to relatives during his childhood.

“Toad’s Oil” (2009) is Mr. Yakusho’s one attempt at directing, with a script based on an idea of his about an eccentric family’s reaction to the death of a teenage son. It’s a mess, and the notion of the childlike adult (the day-trader father) saved by the wisdom of the young is pretty commonplace, but it’s Mr. Yakusho’s gift to seem genuine in the most artificial surroundings, even when he has to jump up and down and repeatedly shout “Show me the money!”

In addition to the 1997 “Cure,” Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s supremely creepy blend of Japanese horror and film noir, the highlight of the Yakusho mini-festival is Takashi Miike’s “13 Assassins,” which received a limited American release this year. An efficient yet elegant gloss on “The Seven Samurai” and “The Wild Bunch,” it stars Mr. Yakusho as the leader of a group of samurai assigned to kill a psychopathic warlord, wielding his sword in defense of honor and reason.

The role of the leader in “13 Assassins” is clearly modeled on the comparable role played by Takashi Shimura in “The Seven Samurai” in 1954, and Mr. Yakusho is one of the few contemporary Japanese actors who stands comparison, at least in terms of productivity and versatility, with an earlier generation of titans like Mr. Shimura, Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai.

His casual style and Everyman quality, however, set him apart and may explain why he has been able to connect with Western audiences to the degree that he has. In searching for comparisons, Tom Hanks comes to mind, or perhaps James Stewart, with his undercurrent of despair. It would have been fun to see what Hitchcock could have done with him.