Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#31758
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Tae Kimura works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tae Kimura appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tae. The Case of Hana & Alice is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for music, drama, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yusaku Matsumoto, Dave Boyle, Shunichi Hirano and others, Tae Kimura helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
The Case of Hana & Alice (2015) as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice) · This Is I (2026) as Hatsue · Last Man -FIRST LOVE- (2025)
Career snapshot
Ranked #31758 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2015–2026
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
The Case of Hana & Alice
Average Nutevio score
4.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Case of Hana & Alice
Most frequent director
Yusaku Matsumoto
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Yusaku Matsumoto
Most common genre
Comedy
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 14m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.1
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2010s
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Case of Hana & Alice — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Case of Hana & Alice.
Most productive era
2020s
8 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 4.63 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.31 film |
| Comedy | 7.31 film | 4.33 films |
| Horror | — | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice). 7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2026This Is I
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
9 of 9 films
as Hatsue
Directed by Yusaku Matsumoto
as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
Directed by Shunji Iwai
Directed by Shunichi Hirano
Directed by Unknown
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Hatsue
This Is I (2026)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hatsue gives Tae Kimura a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
The Case of Hana & Alice (2015)
Performance score7.4
The Case of Hana & Alice asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yuki Tsutsumi (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Last Man -FIRST LOVE-
Last Man -FIRST LOVE- (2025)
Performance score6.7
Last Man -FIRST LOVE- asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
The Supporting Actors in Byplaywood
The Supporting Actors in Byplaywood (2021)
Performance score6.6
The Supporting Actors in Byplaywood asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Hatsue
Start here. This Is I is the clearest statement of what Tae Kimura does — accessible, 130 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tae at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
The Case of Hana & Alice (2015)
A deliberate change of key after This Is I — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Supporting Actors in Byplaywood (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of The Case of Hana & Alice but asks for a colder reading of it.
Last Man -FIRST LOVE- (2025)
A deliberate change of key after The Supporting Actors in Byplaywood — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Never After Dark (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Last Man -FIRST LOVE- — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Shunji Iwai
Director
1 film together
Notably The Case of Hana & Alice
Noriyoshi Sakuma
Director
1 film together
Notably Your Turn to Kill: The Movie
Shunichi Hirano
Director
1 film together
Notably Last Man -FIRST LOVE-
Dave Boyle
Director
1 film together
Notably Never After Dark
Yusaku Matsumoto
Director
1 film together
Notably This Is I
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Shunji Iwai
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Case of Hana & AliceYusaku Matsumoto
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
This Is IShunichi Hirano
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Last Man -FIRST LOVE-Noriyoshi Sakuma
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Your Turn to Kill: The MovieDave Boyle
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Never After DarkSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
This Is I
as Hatsue
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
This Is I
as Hatsue
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Case of Hana & Alice
as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Your Turn to Kill: The Movie
as Sanae Enomoto
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
This Is I
as Hatsue
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Tae Kimura has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Case of Hana & Alice
as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Case of Hana & Alice
as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
This Is I
as Hatsue
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Case of Hana & Alice
as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Case of Hana & Alice
as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Case of Hana & Alice
as Yuki Tsutsumi (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
This Is I
as Hatsue
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Last Man -FIRST LOVE-
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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