My favorite people

Thuy Trang was born on December 14th of 1973 in Saigon, Vietnam. After the fall of Saigon in 1975 to Communist forces, her father who had fought in the Vietnam War, traveled to the United States to seek political asylum. However, his entire family, unable to follow, were left behind.

In 1979, Thuy and her family boarded a cargo ship with other refugees to travel to the United States. However, first they sailed to a detention camp in Hong Kong.

The family was finally reunited in California in 1980.

Thuy graduated from Banning High School and earned a scholarship to study civil engineering at UC Irvine.

After her father died from cancer In 1992, Thuy got interested in acting and, in 1993, got her first big break when she landed the role of Trini Kwan on the hit TV series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993). In 1994, Thuy left the show to pursue other projects.

After appearing in a video documentary called the Encyclopedia of Martial Arts: Hollywood Celebrities (1995), as an interviewee, and a cameo as a manicurist in Spy Hard (1996), Thuy got her next large role as Kali in The Crow: City of Angels (1996), the sequel to The Crow (1994).

Tragically, on September 3rd 2001, Thuy was a passenger in a car traveling on the I-5, that lost control. She suffered fatal injuries.

She leaves behind only a small body of work but, through them, she made an impact on many.

Thuy Trang will be missed by many.

Kudoh Yuki is an accomplished Japanese singer, former teen idol and actress whose resume includes more than half a dozen records, starring roles in Japanese, Japan-Iran and Japan-Canada films, stage and anime productions. She was only seventeen when she was working overseas, in the USA, filming a movie called Mystery Train, a film she has cited as her favourite role. Born on January 17th, 1971, Kudoh won acclaim as early as 1984 as the Best Newcomer at the sixth Yokohama Film Festival for her first feature length appearance, which was for the film The Crazy Family. Kudoh has spoken both about feminism and breaking free from Japan's male-dominated culture and simultaneously pleaded in favour of distinct Japanese values and aesthetics in film and culture.

Joanne Takahashi was born on 13 November 1963 in San Francisco, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Future War (1997), The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (1995) and Babylon 5 (1993).

Maya Kurosu was born on 4 December 1983. She is an actress, known for Drug (2001), Persona (2000) and Boogiepop and Others (2000).

Renata Sayuri was born on March 13, 1981 in Taubaté, São Paulo, Brazil. She is an actress who started on TV in the program Fantasia (1997), and known for Band Kids (2000), Um Só Coração (2004), Toma Lá, Dá Cá (2007), Revelação (2008-2009), Malhação (2010), 9mm: São Paulo (2011), Estação Liberdade (2013) and A Vida Secreta dos Casais (2017).

Khulan Chuluun was born on 30 May 1985 in Kharkhorin, Mongolia. She is an actress and assistant director, known for Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007), The Old Man (2012) and Lave (2009). She has been married to Naryn Igilik since 2007.

Grace Park (born March 14, 1974) is an American-Canadian actress. She gained recognition as Lt. Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii and Lt. Sharon 'Athena' Agathon on Battlestar Galactica (2004), as well as Shannon Ng in the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont (2000). From 2010 to 2017, Park starred as Officer Kono Kalakaua in the CBS television series Hawaii Five-0 (2010), which debuted on September 20, 2010. Born in Los Angeles, Park moved with her family to Canada when she was 22 months old. She was raised in the Vancouver neighborhood of Kerrisdale. Park is of Korean heritage. She graduated from Magee Secondary School in 1992 and holds a degree in psychology from the University of British Columbia.

Vivian Wu (Chinese name : Wu JunMei) is a Chinese American actress and producer. Born in Shanghai, China, to Zhu ManFang, a famous Chinese actress and Wu ChengYe, a college professor, she was discovered by female director HuangShuQin during her visit to her mother's film set when she was 15 years old and was offered one of the lead roles in Huang's Long Live Youth launching her prolific acting career. While completing high school, Wu was also starring in numerous films and soon became one of the nation's most promising young stars.

During her third year as an actress Vivian was chosen by legendary director Bernardo Bertolucci to play the role of Wen Xiu, in his iconic Oscar-winning film, The Last Emperor. Bertolucci's film introduced Vivian to the international stage outside of mainland China. Vivian was the first Asian actress to receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the prestigious Italian David Donatello film festival.

Vivian then went to Hawaii Pacific University to study Travel Industry Management. After moving to Los Angeles in 1990, she was selected by People Magazine as one of the fifty most beautiful people in the world. Since 1990, she has dedicated herself full-time to her acting career.

Besides for The Last Emperor, she is also known for her roles in The Joy Luck Club, and Heaven and Earth. More notably, Vivian starred with Ewan McGregor in Peter Greenaway's award-wining The Pillow Book which also won Cannes' Certain Regard Award. Vivian's remarkable portrayal of Nagiko, a deeply obsessed Japanese woman earned her international raving reviews.

In addition to her notable Western films and television work, Vivian continues her impressive career in China. She has starred in several independent feature films and garnered excellent reviews for such international films as Chinaman and Eve and the Firehorse, the latter which earned her a nomination for Canada's Genie Award, for her outstanding performance of MeiLing.

In 2018, Cathy Yan offered Vivian the leading role in her directorial debut Dead Pigs. Vivian's energetic performance of Candy won her and her three costars a Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Recent television credits then include hit series such as Wo Ju, Ru Yi Zhuan, Hot Mama etc..

Vivian has also been involved in many charity foundations. In 1999, she founded the "Vivian Wu and Friends Educational Charity Foundation" in Shanghai to aid children with special educational needs.

Vivian has been married to Oscar Luis Costo, a Cuban/American producer/writer/director. The two met on the set of Vanishing Son, in which Vivian starred in and Oscar produced. Their 1996 Shanghai wedding in China was featured by People Magazine in their Celebrity Weddings of the Year Special Edition. Vivian was selected as the best-dressed bride of the year. She and Oscar have collaborated on several projects together, and in 2004, Vivian produced and starred in Oscar's feature film Shanghai Red.

In 2019, Vivian spent over half a year in North America, playing the role of Dr. Lu Wang, a series regular, on the Netflix series Away - a new dramatic series premiering globally on September 4th, 2020.

Ming-Na ("enlightenment") was born on the island of Macau, forty miles from Hong Kong. Her mother, Lin Chan Wen, divorced her father when Ming-Na was only a toddler. She has an older brother named Jonathan. After the divorce, they moved to Hong Kong where her mother became a nurse. There her mother met Soo Lim Yee, a U.S. businessman. They soon married, and at four years, Ming-Na moved with her family to Queens, New York. Five years later, they transferred to Yee's hometown of Pittsburgh where his family runs the Chinatown Inn restaurant. Jonathan and half-brother, Leong, now manage this restaurant. Struggling to fit in at school, she changed her name to Maggie & Doris. She found a love for acting while appearing in a third grade Easter play, where she played a klutzy bunny. Her mother was not excited about her desire to pursue acting, She preferred that she go into medicine. Nonetheless, Ming-Na graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in theatre. She got her first acting job in 1988 on the soap As the World Turns (1956). Her big break came when she was cast in The Joy Luck Club (1993). When she needed a ride to the premiere of the film, her acting instructor sent one of his students, Eric Michael Zee. The two started dating in 1994 after Ming-Na moved permanently to Los Angeles and married in 1995, dropping her last name, Wen, at that time. She says she is now like Ann-Margret. Zee is a screenwriter and, with Ming-Na, manages At Last, a boy band.

Yumi Kawai is known for Plan 75 (2022), Desert of Namibia (2024) and Shigatsu ni nareba kanojo wa (2024).

Best known for her roles as a poignant and mobile heroine in Li Yang's Blind Mountain (2007) and Guo Xiaolu's She, a Chinese (2009), Huang Lu is a Chinese actress active in international art-house cinema. A graduate from the Department of Performance at the Beijing Film Academy, she has walked the red carpets at Cannes (Blind Mountain and K. Rajagopal's A Yellow Bird (2016)), Venice (Vimukthi Jayasundara's Ahasin Wetei (2009)), and Berlin (Lou Ye's Blind Massage (2014)and Jordan Schiele's Dog Days (2016)), among other international film festivals. She has also become a go-to actress for eccentric or melancholic roles in Taiwanese films such as Apolitical Romance (2013), How to Describe a Cloud (2013), Design 7 Love (2014), and Cities of Last Things (2018).

Daughter of a Chinese woman, who spent her childhood in Nishi Ku (Fukuoka City). When she was in elementary school, her parents divorced and she went to live with her mother, who ran a little restaurant. Being a child she practiced karate in junior high school, represented Kyushu in several competitions and finally won the woman national karate championship. During her attendance in the Nippon College of Health and Physical Education for women, where she studied physical education, she saw the film "Young Master" (1980), directed and starring Sing Lung, and decided enrolling JAC (Japan Action Club) to become a stuntwoman. She finally changed her name to "Oshima" and debuted in the TV series "Super Electron Bio-Man" in 1984. At that time one part of JAC, "Asia Action", became independent and based in Hong Kong and Yukari decided to leave Japan. Chinese director Hung Kam-Bo gave her a bit part in the martial arts film "Shanghai Express" in 1986 and thus she began a career in Hong Kong until 1994, when after more than 20 Chinese films and a divorce from star Cheng Ho-Nam she established herself in the Philippines and changed her name for the second time to "Cynthia Luster" (Sincere Raster). Here she would participate in more than 20 films.

Uchida Yuki was born in Tokyo. She attended Fujimura Women's High School and fenced as an activity. Like most Japanese female celebrities she has modelled, acted, sang and represented companies in commercials and advertisements. She began working at age sixteen in 1991 and subsequently skipped finishing school. She began acting in serials and did modelling emphasizing a masculine look with short hair. She would later grow her hair slightly. She had a radio show as well, which lasted until shortly after the turn of the century. Her first single, Tenca Wo Torou!, which also acted as a theme for a serial called Hanjyoku Tamago in which she participated landed at position one in the Japanese charts. There were several concert videos and photo books of her in this period. She began her own acting workshops. She retired upon marriage to fellow actor Hidetaka Yoshioka in 2002. However she returned in 2006 following her 2005 divorce and became active on television again. Mizuno Miki was the mainstay actress in the Odoru Daisosasen TV serials and movies, but was not cast again in 2010. Reports emerged that she was blacklisted after departing Burning Productions in 2005, which is yakuza owned, and as such was replaced by that agency's actress Uchida Yuki.

Yasue Satô was born on 7 December 1978. She is an actress, known for Bounce Ko Gals (1997), Ultraman Nexus (2004) and Ultraman Zero: The Revenge of Belial (2010).

Chiharu Niiyama was born on 14 January 1981 in Aomori City, Aomori, Japan. She is an actress, known for Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger the Movie: Full Blast Action (2004) and Shiawase no shippo (2002). She has been married to Satoshi Kuroda since December 2004. They have one child.

Ellen Wong was born in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Her first role was on the award winning television series "This Is Wonderland." She is best known for her role as Knives Chau in "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World," starring alongside Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jason Schwartzman. She auditioned against many hopefuls through an international talent search to fill the role of Knives Chau. Edgar Wright wanted to work with Ellen as she was able to showcase herself as a unique actress, with the ability to also take on intense fight choreography. During training for "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World," the on-set trainer nicknamed Ellen, The Ellen-nator.

Tamlyn Tomita was born on 27 January 1966 in Okinawa, Japan. She is an actress and writer, known for The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and The Eye (2008). She is married to Daniel Blinkoff.

Rinko was born Kikuchi Yuriko in Hadano just south of Tokyo. The town is known mainly for its green tea and public baths. She is the youngest of three siblings. After being scouted on the street, she began modeling in her hometown and subsequently began acting under her birth name before switching to Rinko. She appeared in the cult film The Taste Of Tea, but came to mainstream audiences' attention for her role in Babel, for which she had learned sign language. She played a deaf-mute. She was the first Japanese actress to be nominated for the Oscars in 50 years, since Miyoshi Umeki. Other than that she had appeared in commercials, including ads for Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as Japanese soap operas. As a result, her popularity rose outside her native country. She moved to New York City and lived for a time with director Spike Jonze, whom she had met in Tokyo at a film festival in 2009. That's when she began taking English lessons. While she had appeared in the acclaimed film version of Norwegian Wood, her later American were mostly popcorn flicks like 47 Ronin and Pacific Rim. Her success and foray into American entertainment continued with her castings in Kumiko, and Westworld. Rinko married Japanese actor Sometani Shota in 2014 and gave birth to a son in October 2016. She is a capable rider of horses and motorcycles and grew up watching samurai films.

Born to immigrants in New York City, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, is from Beijing & her father, Tom Liu, a civil engineer, is from Shanghai. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts, the energetic actress is finally earning her stripes as an across-the-board leading lady.

She graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1986 & enrolled in NYU. However, she was discouraged by the dark and sarcastic atmosphere, so she transferred to the University of Michigan after her freshman year. She graduated w/ a degree in Asian Languages & Cultures, managing to squeeze in some additional training in dance, voice, fine arts & acting. During her senior year, she auditioned for a small part in a production of Alice in Wonderland and walked away with the lead. Encouraged by the experience, she decided to take the plunge into professional acting. She moved to L.A., splitting her time between auditions & food service day jobs. She eventually scored a guest appearance as a waitress on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990). That performance led to more walk-on parts in shows like NYPD Blue (1993), ER (1994) & The X-Files (1993). In 1996, she was cast as an ambitious college student on Rhea Perlman's ephemeral sitcom Pearl (1996).

She first appeared on the big screen as an ex-girlfriend in Jerry Maguire (1996) (she had previously filmed a scene in the indie Bang (1995), but it was shelved for 2 years). She then waded through a series of supporting parts in small films before landing her big break on Ally McBeal (1997). She initially auditioned for the role of Nelle Porter, which went to Portia de Rossi. However, writer-producer David E. Kelley was so impressed w/ her that he promised to write a part for her in an upcoming episode. The part turned out to be that of growling, ill-tempered lawyer Ling Woo, which she filled w/ such aplomb that she was signed on as a regular cast member.

The "Ally" win gave her film career a much-needed boost-in 1999, she was cast as a dominatrix in the Mel Gibson action flick Payback (1999) & as a hitchhiker in the ill-received boxing saga Play It to the Bone (1999). The following year brought even larger roles: first as the kidnapped Princess Pei Pei in Jackie Chan's western Shanghai Noon (2000), then as one-third of the comely crime-fighting trio in Charlie's Angels (2000).

When she's not hissing at clients or throwing well-coiffed punches, she keeps busy w/ an eclectic mix of off-screen hobbies. She practices the martial art of Kali-Eskrima-Silat (knife-and-stick fighting), skis, rock climbs, rides horses &plays the accordion. In 1993, she exhibited a collection of multimedia art pieces at the Cast Iron Gallery in SoHo (New York), after which she won a grant to study & create art in China. Her hectic schedule doesn't leave much time for romantic intrigue, but she says she prefers to keep that side of her life uncluttered.

Jacqueline recently co-wrote and starred in the feature film, Advantageous, which won a special jury prize at the 2015 Sundance film festival for Collaborative Vision (for her and co-writer/ director, Jennifer Phang). She also composed music for the film and is the lead singer/ songwriter for the band, This I Heard. Ms. Kim was the first Korean American actress to be nominated for an Independent Spirit award playing the title role in Eric Byler's critically acclaimed, Charlotte Sometimes.

Born in Shenyang, grew up in Jinan, the daughter of an economics professor. Loved music from childhood, and dreamed of a singing career. After failing to gain entrance to China's top music school in 1985, applied for and was admitted to the Central Drama Academy in Beijing, from which she graduated in 1989. While still a student, was cast as the female lead in Red Sorghum (1988)(aka "Red Sorghum"), the initial directing effort by Yimou Zhang. China's best-known actress in the West, she was named Best Actress at the 49th Venice International Film Festival for her role in The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) (aka "The Story of Qiu Ju"). Made a series of successful films with Yimou Zhang, a collaboration that apparently ended with the breakup of their personal relationship in 1995 and Gong's subsequent marriage to a tobacco company executive.

Tae-ri Kim is a South Korean actress. Kim started her career appearing in theater productions and modelling in TV adverts. She made her feature film debut in Park Chan-wook's film The Handmaiden (2016) where she was chosen from among 1,500 candidates who auditioned for the role. Park's first impression of Kim reminded him strongly of his first meeting with actress Kang Hye-jung, who had her career breakthrough in Park's film Oldboy (2003).

Kim also starred in 1987: When the Day Comes (2017) and Little Forest (2018).

Mimi Daraphet is known for The Janitors Closet (2021).

Yôko Minamino was born on 23 June 1967 in Itami, Japan. She is an actress, known for Sukeban deka (1987), Hold Me and Kiss Me (1992) and Kantsubaki (1992).

Mari Yamamoto was born in Japan and grew up in London and Tokyo. She is completely bilingual in Japanese and English. She has a BA in International Relations from ICU(Tokyo) and studied acting at The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York for two years. She was a member of The Bats at The Flea Theatre in Tribeca NY for several years, performing in various off-off Broadway shows. She works internationally, appearing in films made in the US, Greece, Singapore, Japan and Czech Republic.