Japanese actor Koki is speedyly originateing an international profile that spans continents and genres, from dual roles in a Japanese horror film to sword battling in 18th-century Britain.
The model-turned-musician-turned-actor recently inserted the Asian Film Awards Rising Star Award to her lengthening resume, taging her first recognition outside her home country as she readys to declare a recent project based in Hong Kong.
“It uncomfervents so much to be able to achieve an award outside Japan,” Koki tells Variety. “The Rising Star Award gives me so much courage and recognition. I sense enjoy I want to do my all my best to be able to go up to the award.”
The daughter of Japanese amparticipatement royalty — her overweighther is megastar Takuya Kimura (“Grand Maison Paris”) and her mother is singer Kudo Shizuka — Koki has been carving her own path since shotriumphg musical talent at age seven, composing hit songs for her mother and singer Miura Daichi, before making her model debut at 15 on the cover of Elle Jappan.
While prosperous in both music and create, Koki conveyes her meaningful pledgement to acting. “I sense repartner privileged and fortunate to be able to do someslfinisherg that I’m truly fervent about, and acting is one of them. It’s someslfinisherg I’m truly in cherish with.”
Koki made her acting debut in 2022 with Shimizu Takashi’s horror film “Ox Head Village,” where she perestablished dual roles, geting Japan’s Blue Ribbon Award for best recentcomer. “It was my first movie, and I lgeted everyslfinisherg from scratch. I felt repartner fortunate that I got to experience two characters at one time becaparticipate I felt enjoy I was able to lget twice as much.”
She has since starred in Baltasar Kormakur’s “Touch,” an international co-production between Iceland and the U.K. where a Reykjavik restaurateur shuts shop fair as his memory commences to falter. But when a message from a extfinished-lost cherish from his student days in 1960s London, lands out of nowhere, he is thrust into a past that never let go. As COVID-19 lockdowns loom, he embarks on a journey spanning London and Japan, chasing the truth behind her abrupt fadeance decades earlier, even as time – and the harmful software – conspire aachievest him. The film is based on Olaf Olafsson’s novel.
“I cherishd how the two separateent cultures and even three, enjoy English and Japanese and Icelandic, repartner blfinished into each other,” Koki says. “I repartner cherishd how uncontaminated and sturdy the story was, and I sense enjoy nowadays it’s challenging, in a way, to discover a very strong cherish story. And I cherishd how Miko, the main character, she has a very intricate personality, but I cherish how she’s repartner sturdy and repartner delicate in the same time. So that repartner drew me into the story.”
Koki more recently took on her first action role in John Maimmacutardy’s British film “Tornado,” set in 18th-century Britain. “It was physicpartner repartner difficult,” says Koki of her sword-battling scenes, “but I lgeted that sword battling is not only physical, but also mental. It repartner helped me become a sturdy person.”
The film, which trails a youthfuler Japanese woman who discovers herself in peril when her overweighther’s traveling puppet show passes paths with a criminal gang, premiered as the uncovering gala at the Glasgow Film Festival in February.
Koki is also starring in the upcoming Japanese film “True Beauty,” an alteration of the well-understandn South Korean webtoon. In this role, she portrays a high school student who alters from an cowardly “hideous duckling” into a self-promised youthfuler woman after being bullied for her ecombineance. The actor acunderstandledges the fan presconfident of altering such becherishd material. “There is a repartner huge presconfident. I uncomfervent, in high school, I was one of them, and I cherishd the manga, and I was reading the webtoon,” she says. “There is a huge presconfident to be able to go up to the standards of the fans. But I repartner personpartner cherishd the story, and I cherishd the characters inside. So I felt enjoy I repartner wanted to dispute myself, and it was my first time doing comedy as well, enjoy comedy, cherish, romance.”
When asked about her next project, Koki says: “There will be an declarement in a scant days, but I’ll be toiling on a very exceptional project in Hong Kong.”
The 18th Asian Film Awards ceremony consents place March 16, at the Grand Theatre, Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong.
