5 Questions With Japanese Actress Kumi Takiuchi

With two acclaimed indie features screening back-to-back at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival — Keiko Tsuruoka’s Ravens and Kiyoshi Sugiyama’s award winner Teki Cometh — actress Kumi Takiuchi cemented her standing as one of the most versatile and fearless young performers of contemporary Japanese cinema. A onetime newcomer discovered through a national talent contest, Takiuchi has built a singular career outside Japan’s idol system, moving fluidly between daring arthouse films and mainstream television dramas. Her range runs from the raw sensuality of Haruhiko Arai’s It Feels So Good (2020), which won her best actress honors from Japan’s Kinema Junpoto awards, to the moral intensity of A Balance (2021) and the early breakthrough of Side Job (2017), with recent TV