Kenji Kawai (川井 憲次 Kawai Kenji, born April 23, 1957) is a Japanese music composer for motion pictures, anime movies, video games and televised programs. He has contributed to the musical scores for numerous films from Japan and other countries in Asia, working in film genres as diverse as anime, horror, sci-fi and historical epic. Among his credits are Tsui Hark's Seven Swords and Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon; Wilson Yip's Ip Man; Mamoru Oshii's films The Red Spectacles, StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops, Ghost in the Shell, Mobile Police Patlabor and Avalon; the anime adaptations of Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½ and Maison Ikkoku; the live-action adaptation of Gantz and Hideo Nakata's films Ring, Ring 2, Chaos, Dark Water and Kaidan.
He was born in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan.
