Show Aikawa is the hardest-working man in Japanese movies, but one that Japanese cinemagoers have rarely, if ever, seen. Unless, that is, they happen to be fans of straight-to-video films. They would know Aikawa as the gangster glaring down from the boxes of dozens of action films with titles like "Shuraba ga Yuku (The Carnage Comes)" and "Katte ni Shiyagare!! (Do What You Want!!)."

Meanwhile, young foreign film fans are becoming aware of Aikawa as the coolest of Japanese movie tough guys, who works with the coolest of the Japanese New Wave directors, such as Takashi Miike and Kiyoshi Kurosawa. And he keeps churning out films at a mad rate -- more than 120 since his first, Seiji Izumi's "Kono Mune no Tokimeki O (The Throbbing of This Breast)" in 1988, and mostly in starring roles.

In person, he looks fresh, fit, rested, vibrant -- a walking advertisement for workaholism. His clothes are fashionable casual, his manner open and friendly, but he is also radiating something more than warmth. Call it a desire to not just experience but to also engulf the world. A man in a hurry, in other words -- and still only 41.