Career
He is best known for his work on screen as manic Japanese American gangster Lee in Sion Sono"s "Hazard" (2005), a thief grappling with his sexual identity in General Sekiguchi"s "Survive Style 5+" (2004), and portraying Beethoven in the popular Tokyo Gas commercials. He has appeared in numerous films and television series, from "21 Jump Street" (1990) to Takashi Shimizu"s "The Great Horror Family" (2004) and Takashi Miike"s "Big Bang Love, Juvenile A" (2006). West has released two spoken word poetry albums in Japanese and English under the pseudonym Lotus Chamelion.
