Kiki Sugino has a one-of-a-kind resume in the domestic movie business. Many are the young "multi-talents" who act, sing and model, but most are recruited, molded and marketed by an agency. From the start, this 31-year-old actor, director and producer took a more independent route toward multi-dom.
Born in Hiroshima in 1984 to a family of Korean descent, Sugino entered Keio University and went to South Korea in her third year as an exchange student. There, she landed a starring role in the 2005 film "One Shining Day," the beginning of an acting career that took her around Asia — she worked on so many Asian productions that in 2011 the Tokyo International Film Festival included a section titled "Sugino Kiki: Muse of the Asian Indie Cinema."
Sugino became a producer with Koji Fukada's 2010 comedy "Hospitalite" ("Kantai"), in which she played the level-headed wife of a print shop owner who falls for the ruses of a con man. "Hospitalite" won the best film prize in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Japanese Eyes section and was screened at nearly 100 film festivals.