Delicately beautiful Japanese actress Youki Kudoh skyrocketed from obscurity to national fame in her native Japan in the early '80s. Talent agents discovered the then-12-year-old girl on the streets of Tokyo and recruited her for a singing career; seemingly within no time, she garnered a massive fan base as a pop sensation -- her country's equivalent of Britney_Spears or Jessica_Simpson. By her 22nd birthday, Kudoh had 11 albums to her credit and segued into acting on an international scale, alternating between arthouse-style independent films, such as the Jim_Jarmusch-directed U.S. production Mystery_Train (1989), and buttered-popcorn fare, such as the 1997 Australian action thriller Heaven's_Burning.


Kudoh achieved much greater recognition in the States when she landed the covetable lead role of Hatsue Imada, the Japanese-American lover of reporter Ishmael Chambers (Ethan_Hawke) in Scott_Hicks' meditation on WWII-era Japanese internment, Snow Falling on Cedars (1999). After scattered minor roles over the next several years, Kudoh followed up her impressive, multi-layered portrayal for Hicks with a performance as Pumpkin in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), director Rob_Marshall's follow-up to the 2002 blockbuster Chicago. In 2006, Kudoh hearkened back to A-list Tinseltown fare as the female lead in the action-filled Jackie_Chan/Chris_Tucker buddy comedy Rush_Hour_3. Nathan Southern, Rovi

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