Brian Keith Tochihara (born May 2, 1959 in Los Angeles, California), better known as Brian Tochi, is an American actor, screenwriter, movie director and producer. He graduated from Cypress High School in 1977, and attended USC, UCLA, and UCI.

Of Asian ancestry, Tochi frequently plays characters who are Japanese, Chinese, or of other Asiatic origin, adopting the appropriate accent as needed. (Educated both by studio tutors and through the Los Angeles public school system, his primary language is English, and his offstage speech is "fluent American".) Among his more famous characters are Takashi from the Revenge of the Nerds movie series, Cadet (later Officer) Nogata from the third and fourth Police Academy film series, martial arts expert Tee Gar Soom from the children's series Space Academy, and the Crown Prince Chulalongkorn in the short-lived series Anna and the King (which starred Yul Brynner).

Early roles for Tochi included a 1968 episode of Star Trek, guest appearances on both The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family, and a recurring role on Hawaii Five-O. He later played featured characters in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone. His regular television roles included hosting Razzmatazz, and appearing in the television dramas St. Elsewhere and Santa Barbara. He also appeared in the short lived TV series The Renegades as the character known as Dragon. He had a two-and-a-half-year association with the school news program Channel One News, who named him Chief Foreign Correspondent.

Also a voice actor, Tochi has voiced characters for numerous animated cartoon series, including Bionic Six, Challenge of the GoBots, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and more recently Batman Beyond, As Told by Ginger, Johnny Bravo, Static Shock, and Kim Possible. He performed the voice of Leonardo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of movies, in the early 1990s. He also is the voice of the Chinese soldier who runs the Great Wall in Disney's Mulan.

In 2004, Tochi co-wrote, produced and directed Tales of a Fly on the Wall, a comedy movie starring Nerds co-star Curtis Armstrong. He is presently continuing his directing, producing, and screenwriting careers.

[edit] External links

• Brian Tochi at the Internet Movie Database
• Brian Tochi at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

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