If you are a fan of foreign films and are up to date on all the latest Japanese movies, no doubt you will have a list of favourite Japanese actresses to go with those movie titles. But what about Japanese actresses in Hollywood? How many of these celebrities do you know and which of their movies is your favourite?
Hama was working as a bus fare collector when she was noticed by a producer called Tomoyuki Tanaka, and it wasn’t long before she started working for Toho Studios. While Hama hasn’t been in a movie for more than 25 years, she is still remembered today as the Bond Girl of ‘You Only Live Twice’, as well as her roles in the King Kong movies.
Tomita is an actress who works mostly on American movies and TV shows. She is most famous for her roles in films such as ‘The Karate Kid’, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, ‘Four Rooms’ and ‘Babylon 5: The Gathering’. She has also starred in several popular American TV Series such as ‘Glee’, ‘Heroes’, ‘Bones’, ‘True Blood’ and ‘CSI Miami’.
This far, Mori’s career has been limited mainly to appearances in TV shows such as ‘Casualty’, ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ and ‘Midsummer Murders’. However, could it be that Mori is the next big thing in the world of famous Asian actresses? She was recently cast to appear in the 2015 movie ‘Everest’ which is coming to Japan in November.
This actress is not widely known in Hollywood as she stars mainly in Japanese films. However, you might have seen her in the 2003 film ‘The Last Samurai’. Before her acting career took off she was a famous model, signed with the magazine Non-no.
A writer and director as well as an actress, Kikuchi has starred in many Western and Japanese movies. You may have seen her in ‘Babel’, ‘The Brothers Bloom’ or ‘Pacific Rim’.
Kuriyama works mainly on Japanese films and TV series, but you might recognise her as Gogo Yubari from ‘Kill Bill’ volumes 1 and 2, where she played a subnormal teenager with a passion and a talent for killing.
Okamoto’s acting career started with a bang when she was cast in the X-Men series film ‘The Wolverine’ in 2013. Since then she has been seen in the TV series ‘Hannibal’ and ‘The Man in the High Castle’, and is currently working on a film set to be released in 2016 – ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’.
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