A grieving widow rediscovers her appetite for life on a Tokyo dance floor. A working-class wife becomes the subject of a documentary by a wealthy filmmaker. A terminally ill theater director strikes up an unexpected friendship in France. And a rookie cop confronts an otherworldly threat in a remote Korean village.
The four films—Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!, Possible Love, All of a Sudden, and Hope—could hardly be more different, but all have attracted attention on this year’s festival circuit, with major prizes at Cannes, Venice, and Sundance among their accolades. Just as notable are the standout performances by four Asian actresses at different stages of their careers: established stars Rinko Kikuchi and Jeon Do-yeon, model turned actress Tao Okamoto, and relative newcomer Hoyeon. Working in genres ranging from intimate character studies to mega spectacles, they bring richly drawn, unpredictable characters to life, making this a banner year that highlights the extraordinary versatility and vibrancy of female Asian performers working in film today.
Two decades after her Oscar-nominated Hollywood breakthrough in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, Rinko Kikuchi gets to showcase her considerable comic gifts in Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!, released in the US last month. She plays Haru, a widow who falls for her handsome ballroom-dance instructor even as she remains haunted by her late husband (whose lingering presence takes the surreal form of a giant crow).
What follows is a heady mixture of grief, desire, fantasy, and dance, complete with elaborate musical interludes and a delirious homage to Dirty Dancing. Kikuchi makes Haru’s occasionally mortifying romantic pursuit both funny and affecting, embracing the character’s impulsive, sometimes ridiculous behavior without diminishing the depth of her loss. Inspired by director Josef Kubota Wladyka’s own mother, the film offers a refreshingly frank portrait of middle-aged female desire. And for an actress whose adventurous filmography spans the Hollywood blockbuster Pacific Rim and the offbeat indie Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, the role draws on more of her range than ever. She shimmies, fantasizes, embarrasses herself, and ultimately makes a convincing case for the possibility of joy after heartbreak.
Jeon Do-yeon, meanwhile, brings to Possible Love the extraordinary emotional acuity that has made her one of Korean cinema’s most compelling performers. Nearly 20 years after winning best actress at Cannes for Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine, she reunites with the director for his first feature since 2018’s Burning. Opening in US theaters this Friday before arriving on Netflix on November 6, the densely layered drama explores class, marriage, and the uneasy relationship between artistic ambition and exploitation.
Jeon plays Mi-ok, whose husband hasn’t found work since losing his factory job. When a wealthy documentary filmmaker approaches the couple about chronicling the plight of laid-off workers, the two women develop an unlikely friendship, drawing their husbands into an increasingly fraught relationship that exposes the economic gulf between the couples.
Jeon is marvelous in the role, allowing flashes of envy, resentment, and longing to surface beneath Mi-ok’s cheerful, accommodating manner without diminishing her warmth or loyalty. Through subtle shifts in expression, she reveals a woman far more complex than the long-suffering wife she might initially appear to be. It’s a talent she has demonstrated throughout her career, including as a domestic worker drawn into a destructive affair in 2010’s The Housemaid.
Tao Okamoto, meanwhile, lends a gentle intensity to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, which opens in theaters on November 25. She plays Mari, an avant-garde theater director diagnosed with terminal cancer who develops a close bond with Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira), the head of an eldercare facility outside Paris.
The three-plus-hour film unfolds largely through conversations between the two women, who move between Japanese and French as they explore mortality, caregiving, and human connection. For Okamoto, whose previous international screen credits include The Wolverine and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the role represents a significant departure. Her Mari is intellectually formidable, independent-minded, and quietly funny, refusing to let her illness define her even as she confronts the realities of dying. In one memorable scene, Mari takes to a whiteboard to explain the destructive workings of capitalism, a lengthy, potentially didactic exercise that Okamoto transforms into an unexpectedly intimate exchange.
Her joint best-actress win with Efira at Cannes this year marked a career milestone, but equally striking is the opportunity to portray a relationship between two women rooted not in rivalry or romance but in intellectual curiosity, mutual respect, and deepening affection.
For Hoyeon, Hope presented a more physically demanding challenge. The South Korean actress and former model, who shot to international fame in Squid Game, makes her feature-film debut in Na Hong-jin’s visceral science-fiction epic, which arrived in US theaters in September and was South Korea’s most expensive film ever produced. She plays Sung-ae, a rookie police officer confronting a mysterious creature terrorizing her rural village. The film is a wild, frequently grotesque spectacle that careens between horror, action, slapstick, and black comedy. Amid the mayhem, Hoyeon brings a defiant energy to a character forced to find her footing in circumstances no amount of police training could prepare her for.
In an interview with Vogue at Cannes, Hoyeon described spending six months preparing for the action sequences, including firearms training, obtaining a stick-shift driving license, and learning stunt-driving techniques. She performed much of the action herself, emerging as one of the film’s most magnetic presences.
What makes these performances exciting isn’t simply the recognition they have received, or may yet receive, during awards season. It’s their remarkable variety: four women navigating radically different worlds, each given room to be complicated, contradictory, and fully, messily human. Seeing Asian actresses offered such substantial, demanding roles is heartening; watching them respond with performances of equal depth and ambition is thrilling. The talent has never been in question; what’s needed are more roles and films worthy of it.