I think Keiko is a good actress, honestly. But she’s not consistently good, IMO, and I find that a bit frustrating. I don’t know if that has to do specifically with her skills or with the kind of work she’s given. Might be a little bit of both, actually…
So last year she put out four movies (Judge!, Akumu-chan, Dakishimetai, Mi wo Tsukushi Ryoricho Part 2) and one drama (HERO, if you don’t count the Akumu-chan special) and I think she performed REALLY well. I haven’t seen Dakishimetai yet but I thought she did excellent in everything else.
Keiko works well with characters that have a more blunt edge to them. Judge! was an…odd movie…but her character was AWESOME and she approached the role with such gusto—-u can TELL she totally enjoyed the part. Same with Akumu-chan and HERO. Even though her character in Mi wo Tsukushi Ryoricho was a bit more demure, she had such a beautiful fighting spirit and I think Keiko did a wonderful job bringing her to life.
Dakishimetai, I’m in no hurry to watch. She’s played those types of characters many times before and as touching as they are, they tend to bore the shit out of me. Which brings me to my main problem with the roles she’s been taking over the past few years—-her body of work (from debut to now) is seriously lacking any challenging or image changing roles.
We haven’t really SEEN her play characters that REALLY push the envelope or inspire a new way of seeing her as an actress. The closest she’s ever gotten to a risky role was Paradise Kiss (2011)—-had that movie ACTUALLY been based off of the manga instead of a gross watered-down mischaracterization of the original work. The next would be maybe, Dear Friends (2007)?
I remember losing my shit when she did a photoshoot with Mika Ninagawa. Erika Sawajiri was phenomenal in Helter Skelter and Ninagawa knows a thing or two about writing and directing complex women. I thought FOR SURE we’d get Keiko working with her but that never happened…
I want to see her in an action movie, or a classic slice-of-life with an ensemble cast, or a postmodern fairy tale film——SOMETHING that just makes people rock back on their heels in awe and think “I didn’t know Keiko could perform like that!”
It’s the ONE thing keeping me from declaring her a GREAT actress.
But in general, from as objective as an opinion that I can form as a stan, YES i think Keiko has pretty solid acting skills. She’s grown A LOT since debut and I’m proud of her. I just wish Stardust wasn’t so image conscious and would let her take on an indie film role or something. So far her film line-up for 2015 doesn’t look very promising where that is concerned so it’s frustrating as a fan waiting to be WOW-ed.
<3 Sade
P.S - Which three of her works are you watching? I could provide a more specific opinion based on that.