The entertainment industry is littered with the offspring of famous entertainers who have tried to be as successful as their famous parents. Most of these children of famous parents tend to have careers that aren't as successful as the careers of their parents. Those famous children who have had careers greater than or equal to their parents are few and far between. In the American entertainment industry, two examples that readily come to mind are actors Michael Douglas and Jeff Bridges, and how they are arguably more famous than their famous fathers, Kirk Douglas and Lloyd Bridges, respectively. Takako Matsu is the rare case in which she has not only emulated the success of her famous kabuki and stage actor father, Koshiro Matsumoto, but in many ways has overshadowed her father's success as well.
Born in Tokyo to a famous kabuki family, Takako Matsu began at an early age to learn all of the skills that are necessary for a successful career in show business: acting, singing, and learning to play the piano. In addition, she earned a license in traditional Japanese dance. [I think I read somewhere that she attended some kind of high school for the performing arts. If this is true, then it makes total sense.]
Her family is a very close knit one consisting of her father, the legendary Koshiro Matsumoto, her mother, Norika, her older brother, Somegoro Ichikawa, an up-and-coming actor of stage, TV, and film in his own right, and her older sister, Kio Matsumoto, who is also a stage actress. In the time-honored kabuki tradition, most of the Matsumoto family members use stage names instead of their real names. Her family's real name is Fujima. For her stage name, Takako's last name is the first kanji character used in Matsumoto. The kanji character for matsu means pine tree in English. In addition, Takako writes her name using the Japanese hiragana syllables for the first four letters of her given name instead of the kanji character for Taka.
Takako's acting career in television was quick to take off as she rapidly from being a supporting actress to a headlining actress. One of Takako's first professional acting roles was in the historical TV drama Hana no Ran (1994) on NHK. She auditioned for and won the role at the age of 16. After a series of minor supporting roles on Japanese TV, Takako's career began to take off when she co-starred in the famous Japanese TV drama Long Vacation (1996) alongside such famous Japanese actors and actresses as Takuya Kimura, Tomoko Yamaguchi, and Yutaka Takenouchi. The TV drama was a ratings and pop culture sensation in Japan. Takako then appeared in yet another NHK historical drama, Hideyoshi (1996), playing Yododono, the second wife of Japanese warlord Hideyoshi Toyotomi. She then had another high profile role, playing Miki, a homeless young woman who worked at two jobs in order to support herself and her comatose mother, in another very popular drama, Hitotsu Yane no Shita 2 (Under the Same Roof 2), on Fuji TV. Like many celebrities in Japan, as her career took off, so did her endorsement deals as Takako at this time signed lucrative contracts with Toshiba, Yamazaki Bread, Seiko, Shiseido, and Coca Cola.
In 1997, Takako's career then hit another peak as she gave a career-making performance in the highly celebrated TV drama Love Generation as Riko Uesugi, a young secretary working at an advertising agency. In the TV drama, she showed that she was already one of the best actresses in Japan [or in any country for that matter] by making her character, the agency's office lady in residence, into a highly sympathetic and complex character that could change emotions with the wind. In many respects, Takako's performance overshadowed the rest of the show's cast, including the show's primary star, Takuya Kimura of the Japanese boy band SMAP, as she dominated every scene she was in. [Love Generation was at its best when the script let Takako and Takuya lock horns with each other IMHO.]
Takako's film career hasn't quite matched her success on the small screen, however. In 1997, her first film role was in Tokyo Biyori in which she was part of an A-list cast that included such Japanese acting heavyweights as Naoto Takenaka, Miho Nakayama, and Tonadobu Asano. The film tells the story of Yoko Araki, the late, and somewhat eccentric, wife of Nobuyoshi Araki, a famous Japanese photographer. For her part, Takako won a film critics' award in which she played the bespectacled Mizutani. [I haven't seen this yet. I keep meaning to buy it when I see it for sale here in Seoul. Takako is just so sexy wearing thick, black rimmed glasses!!!]
Her second film role was in Shunji Iwai's beautiful and impressionistic April Story (Shigatsu Monogatari) (1998), his eagerly awaited follow up to Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) and Love Letter (1995). In the film, she had a memorable role as Uzuki Nireno, a shy, young college freshman from a small town in northern Hokkaido who leaves home for the very first time to attend college in Tokyo. [I believe the film was shot where she went to college, Asia University, in Tokyo. I'd be curious to find out.] She then goes on a series of adventures in Tokyo as she adjusts to her new life in the big city. Conceived as a short film, April Story was originally broadcast on Japanese television by Fuji TV before being released to movie theatres. The film was a critical and popular success both in Japan and abroad, most notably winning the Audience Choice Award at the Pusan International Film Festival in 1998. The film was an especially inspired collaboration for both Takako and Shunji Iwai as April Story spawned a popular soundtrack album (with Takako herself playing piano on many of the songs), a photo album containing stills taken from the movie by famed cinematographer and frequent Shunji Iwai collaborator Noboru Shinoda, and a DVD featuring a series of music videos directed by Iwai himself for Takako's first album, Sora no Kagami. [An interesting and little-known fact is that at the beginning of April Story, the entire Matsumoto family makes a guest appearance as Takako's movie family at the beginning of the film.] As April Story clearly showed, Takako could carry a short film of 67 minutes by herself. However, could she carry a two hour movie? [I once read an interesting review of this film in the Straits Times of Singapore, where April Story and another short film by Shunji Iwai, Fried Dragon Fish, were being shown as a double feature. The reviewer wrote that he could look at Takako "all afternoon long and never get bored." I wholeheartedly agree. ;-)]
With the Japanese cinema world seemingly at her feet, Takako's cinematic career took a backseat to her burgeoning singing and stage careers. Takako released her first album, Sora no Kagami (Empty Sky), back in 1996. Featuring the two top ten singles "Ashita Haru ga Kitara" and the self-penned anthem "I Stand Alone", the album was a big artistic and commercial success. She quickly followed this album up with numerous singles and several albums that have reached the upper regions of the notoriously fickle Japanese charts. In 2001 and 2003, she undertook two sold out tours of Japan.
Her stage career has also been equally successful as her recording career. Her various stage credits include starring as Ophelia in a Japanese production of Hamlet, co-starring in a stage production of Man of La Mancha with her father and sister [I've read that Koshiro Matsumoto is very famous in Japan for playing Don Quixote.], starring in the Japanese plays Roningai and O-Hatsu (both 2004), and most recently, the Tokyo production of Miss Saigon (2004), as one of four actresses playing the title role. Acting in front of an audience is something that Takako clearly enjoys doing, and, as many British actors will testify, performing in plays will make you into a better actor.
Apart from a cameo role in the crime caper film 9 Souls (2003), Takako has been notably absent from the Japanese film world. Most of Takako's acting work during this time was TV-related. She appeared in several more successful TV dramas for Fuji TV, most notably Omiai Kekkon (Arranged Marriage) (2000) [Very, very, very underrated drama IMHO.], Hero (2001), again with Takuya Kimura [Overrated IMHO but not her fault.], and Itsumo Futari De (Always the Two of Us) (2003) [Surprisingly very good.] as well as a couple made for TV movies [Tokyo Monogatari (2002), Go to a Bright Place (2001)]. It wasn't until she played the role of the peasant servant girl Kie opposite Satoshi Nagase in Yoji Yamada's outstanding samurai drama The Hidden Blade (2004) that she returned to the silver screen proper. The film was a welcome comeback for Takako as she was nominated for a Japanese Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance. Unfortunately, she lost out to Kyoka Suzuki for her performance as Takeshi Kitano's long suffering Korean wife in Chi to Hone (Blood and Bones).
Takako now seems to have a fresh interest in film as her first two projects for 2006 are both films. In acclaimed writer-director Koki Mitani's omnibus film The Uchoten Hotel (Suite Dreams), she plays a hotel cleaning woman working on New Year's Eve who gets involved with a Japanese politician played by Koichi Sato. Her other project is the big budget animated fantasy film Brave Story from Fuji TV/Gonzo Animation/Warner Brothers Japan in which she provides the voice for the film's main character, a boy who goes on a quest to a fantasy world in order to prevent his mother's suicide.
Immensely talented and immensely beautiful, Takako Matsu is without a doubt one of the most talented actresses working in the Japanese entertainment industry today. If her filmography is slight for an actress of her caliber and stature, then it's probably because it's still difficult for actresses in Japan to find strong roles to play [Compare Takako's CV to Nanako Matsushima's CV. How many more times must Nanako Matsushima play a high school teacher?]. This may explain why Takako has been devoting most of the past couple of years to her stage and singing careers. Hopefully, the situation in Japan will start to change like it has in Hollywood in recent years with more women getting involved in the production process. It just might be that in order to get the kinds of roles that she deserves, she'll have to go into producing projects herself at the expense of her music and stage careers. [Several high profile actresses in Hollywood have begun to do just this.] Whether she is willing to make that kind of a sacrifice is impossible to tell. Takako Matsu, front and center. The Japanese film industry needs you!!!
Biography contributed by C.R.