Acting
Feb 17, 1986
Tokyo, Japan
Sakura Ando
Acting
Biography
With parents in show business, perhaps it is not surprising that Sakura Ando became an actress and, moreover, later married an actor. She was born to actor/director Okuda Eiji and celebrity Kazu Ando on 18 February 1986. Her great-grandfather was Prime Minister Tsuyoshi. Her older sister is director Ando Momoko. She saw her father on stage at age five and decided to become an actress while in second grade. She was often ill as a child; her illness made her dizzy, caused balance problems, and at times her brain would shut down. She chose her mother's maiden surname for her professional career. Sono Sion cast her in his film Love Exposure and gave her a major break on the big screen. She won Best Supporting Actress for that role at the 31st Yokohama Film Festival. Earlier, her father cast her in his film Kaze No Sotogawa (Outside the Wind) alongside her mother and sister. She has since appeared in multiple films and TV series and won several more awards. She married actor Emoto Tasuku in 2012; they met on a train in 2008 and she had obtained her father's permission to date and marry. She was a boxer in 100 Yen Love, which suited her because she had practiced boxing at age fourteen. She gave birth to her first child, a girl, in 2017. She won Best Actress at the 42nd Japan Academy Prize for her work in 2018's Shoplifters. By then she was considered one of the top young actresses in Japan alongside Yu Aoi, Miyazaki Aoi, and possibly Aso Kumiko. Interestingly, she had earlier decided to retire and focus on raising her child. She is a graduate of Gakushuin Women's College.
Feature Films (52)
The story of a teenage boy called Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while operating for the sake of sin as an upskirt photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing - which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian - dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.
Love Exposure
Based on the semibiographical novel by Jun Miura, Oh My Buddha is the classic summer coming-of-age story that is burned to a crisp with teenage angst, youthful dreams and that warm sense of folk zeitgeist of the 70s. The narrator is a first-year student at an all-boys Buddhist school. Jaded by his dull, ordinary life, he longs for the type of creative, liberal and forward life his idol Bob Dylan leads, writing rock songs alone in his room, imitating his hero's signature croon, until one day he got invited on an island trip of sexual liberation with his fellow liberal friend.
Oh, My Buddha!
17 year-old Hiruma is desperate to get laid and takes out his sexual urges on Anpai, a fat boy who has "boobs." His classmate Tomono, a sickly loner, is in a serious relationship with their married teacher.
Ain't No Tomorrows
A grifter and her loose-cannon brother get their hands on a massive amount of money, but their ill-gotten gains puts a huge target on their back.
Bad Lands
A Crowd of Three tells the story of two men, Kenta & Jun, who grew up as almost brothers at a children's facility. Kenta & Jun now works as part of a demolition crew but become fed up with their jobs. The friends then decide to take a road trip up north to visit Kenta's brother at the Abashiri prison.
A Crowd of Three
Television & Series (21)
Based on true story of the wife of Ando Momofuku, the businessman who founded Nissin Food Products Co. Ltd. and the inventor of instant ramen, the 99th Asadora follows the life of Tachibana Fukuko, a young woman who tries to survive tough times in Osaka with her husband from before WWII to the rapid economic development era. Together they overcome various setbacks before they succeed in creating instant noodles. (Source: MDL)
Mampuku
Koharu is a dull high school girl who is always alone. Her only hobby is making plastic models. One day, Koharu stops by a mysterious antique shop and purchases a plastic model gun and a toy figure named Alice. After spending the entire night assembling the gun, Koharu wakes up and witnesses bullets flying everywhere in school. She then meets Alice who moves like a human and tells her to get ready for a survival battle called "Girl Gun Fight", where she has to attack her schoolmates with a gun.
Girl Gun Lady
Noda is a female college student majoring in Russian in the Faculty of Letters at Tokyo Heisei University in Saitama. She’s “a member of the shadow puppet club”, “wears glasses and has braids”, and “dresses in a sweatshirt and jeans”. With her unique personality, she often stands out from her classmates. But her club seniors and friends can’t help but be fascinated by her…
My Name is Noda
The murder of a young girl shocks a small Japanese village, and the victim's mother is distraught when the classmates her daughter was playing with all claim not to remember the identity of the killer. In her anger, she puts a curse on them.
