Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest Netflix series, Asura, has been received very well – thanks to the brilliant storytelling, masterful direction, and fantastic acting performances by the cast. In this article, we’re going to look into who is playing what in the show and talk about the character for a bit.
Jun Kunimura as Kotaro
Veteran actor Jun Kunimura — whose most famous work is playing the Japanese priest in Korean director Na Hong-Jin’s The Wailing (2016), which I considered to be the greatest horror movie of this generation — plays Kotaro in Asura. The show begins with Takako discovering her seventy-something father – Kotaro – being unfaithful to her mother for a long time and even having a child (which ultimately turns out to be not his child, though). Kunimura is quite fantastic in the role, where most of the acting is done by expression and not words.
Keiko Matsuzaka as Fuji
Keiko Matsuzaka, who has a sprawling career and was also part of Kore-eda’s debut Netflix series, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, in 2023, plays the role of Fuji here. She is Kotaro’s wife, who gets cheated on, and later you get to know that she was actually aware of it — that only makes it more heartbreaking. Matsuzaka doesn’t have a bigger role in Asura compared to others but is quite impressive, nonetheless.
Rie Miyazawa as Tsunako
Popular Japanese actress and former pop singer, Rie Miyazawa, is cast as Tsunako. She is the eldest of four sisters. Tsunako is a widow who lives alone, as her adult son, Masiki, is living elsewhere. The highlight of the character is her relationship with her boss at the restaurant she works in. Miyazawa plays the part in a very convincing manner.
Machiko Ono as Makiko
Acting-wise, Machiko Ono has to be the performer of the show. That, of course, has a lot to do with the character she is playing. Makiko, the second daughter of Kotaro and Fuji, might seem like a regular homemaker and mother of two, but the character is actually quite complex and has many shades. This is not easy to pull off, and only an actor of high caliber can do that. Machiko Ono is definitely that. We have, of course, seen her before in Kore-eda’s award-winning Like Father, Like Son back in 2013.
Yu Aoi as Takako
Yu Aoi, who is a popular name in the Japanese industry, plays Takako. She is the youngest sister of Tsunako and Makiko and the elder sister of Sakiko. Takako is the one who sees their father, Kotaro, with another woman (the one with whom he’s having the affair) and, eventually, hires an investigator, Katsumata to look into it. Little did she know that she would fall in love with the investigator and end up marrying him. Aoi has done a commendable job here.
Suzu Hirose as Sakiko
I thought I’d seen Suzu Hirose somewhere before, and it turns out that I was right after all. She indeed played the part of Suzu, the adorable half-sister in Our Little Sister, which was my introduction to the cinema of Hirokazu Kore-eda almost a decade ago. As a matter of coincidence, Hirose is playing the younger sister in Asura as well. Her character is much different from the earlier Kore-eda film, though. For most of the show, she appears to be cheerful, confident, and also a bit of a show-off, which does get on your nerves at times. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot empathize with the character. She is in a pretty damaging relationship with Hide and even has a kid. For the entirety of Asura, Sakiko tries to pretend that everything in her life is hunky dory. Only during the climax does she break down in front of Takako — Hirose is masterful in this scene when it comes to portraying the vulnerabilities of the character.
Masahiro Motoki as Takao
Masahiro Motoki played the protagonist of Departures — the 2008 Japanese movie that won the best foreign language film at the Academy awards. His body of work also includes hit Netflix shows like Giri/Haji. His performance in Asura as Makiko’s husband, Takao, is quite impressive. In many scenes, Takao is just in the background. Then there are times when he takes the center stage, and the focus is on him. Motoki does both things brilliantly. He plays the part so well and you find it hard reaching a conclusion regarding whether his character is actually cheating on his wife or not.Â
Ryuhei Matsuda as Katsumata
Ryuhei Matsuda has a genuinely innocent face, which is perfect for the character he is playing in Asura. Katsumata may be an investigator, but he is not what is usually considered as cool. Instead, he is an awkward, bumbling man who has a heart of gold. He is also very much smitten with Takako. And Matsuda plays the lovestruck man quite well here. He also wears a pair of dark glasses, which does remind me of Wong Kar-wai for obvious reasons, but I think this is just a mere coincidence and nothing more.
Kisetsu Fujiwara as Hide
You know an actor has done a terrific job when he effortlessly provokes feelings of hatred and love. That’s exactly what’s going on with Kisetsu Fujiwara’s Hide. He is an aspiring boxer at the start of the show who’s in a relationship with Sakiko. Hide eventually goes on to become a celebrated boxer after winning many accolades, but he also starts getting erratic, which ruins his relationship. He treats Sakiko quite terribly, making you hate him so much. You do feel bad when he ultimately ends up at the hospital bed in a comatose state from which he doesn’t recover, although he shows the sign of slight improvement. Fujiwara pretty much knocks it out of the park, for which he deserves a lot of appreciation.
Other Characters
Additionally, Seiyo Uchino plays the man with whom Tsunako has the affair. Actors Yui Natsukawa, Naho Toda, Kumi Takiuchi, Kairi Jyo, Maru Nouchi, and Atsuko Takahata also have small but significant roles in Asura.
