Reiko Kataoka

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

>Can anyone give an update on actress Reiko Kataoka? Last year a friend told 
>me she was suffering from cancer. She hasn't been very active as an actress 
>of late, Naoki Ichio's A DROWNING MAN (OBORERU HITO) is her only listed 
>screen credit for 2002 according to the JMBD, and that one was made a year 
>earlier.

Kataoka, who've I've kind of liked as an actress myself, suffered a 
stroke last year just at the time when she was getting plaudits for 
Hashiguchi Ryosuke's film Hush! It was apparently not debilitating, 
however, and she has slowly been reappearing before the public eye. I saw 
some newspaper articles on her accepting actress awards for Hush! 

Kataoka is widely recognized as a good actress, but she's also known for 
being a hard drinker and a hard customer, so she kind of developed a bad 
reputation among directors. I once talked to Harada Masato about her (she 
appeared in Kamikaze Taxi), and while he likes her, he confirmed these 
opinions. To some, she was so good in Hush! because that's the way she is 
in real life. 

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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