sentences:  He became involved with amateur, then professional, theater companies and in 1931 made his first film.Like most Asian actors in non-Asian countries, he played primarily small, stereotypical roles, though he rose quickly to familiarity, if not fame, in a number of films.His stern features led him to be a favorite movie villain, and the outbreak of World War II gave him greater prominence in roles as vicious Japanese soldiers in such successful pictures as "The Purple Heart" (1944) and "God Is My Co-Pilot" (1945).