Qyoko Kudo

Qyoko Kudo is a Japanese actress who works in film and on stage, having moved into acting after first building a career in business. She trained at United Performers' Studio in Tokyo and was cast by Yoko Narahashi in the Alejandro González Iñárritu film Babel. She went on to work with directors from abroad who viewed Japan through their own lens, and with Japanese filmmakers, appearing in projects that drew nominations at home and overseas. Edmund Yeo's kingyo took her to the Venice International Film Festival in 2009, and that same year she was at Raindance with Yasutomo Chikuma's Now, I... Yusaku Okamoto's Fragrance of Smoke screened at Short Shorts Film Festival in Asia in 2011. In 2013 she earned Best Director and Best Lead Actress nominations at the St. Tropez International Film Festival for Sutipornprachum Vichian's Clothes Pegs, and appeared as Aya, wife of Hiroyuki Sanada's Shingen Yashida, in James Mangold's The Wolverine (2013).