
Acting
Ayumi Ito
Born 1980-04-14 · Tokyo, Japan
Born in Tokyo, Ayumi Ito has always had a love for movies and art. She made her big-screen debut in Nobuhiko Obayashi's The Water Travelers: Samurai Kids. Her distinctive style led to her critically acclaimed performance in Swallowtail Butterfly, directed by the renowned Director Shunji Iwai. At 16-years-old, Ayumi was awarded both the Best New Actress Award as well as the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 20th Annual Japanese Academy Awards. Ayumi's career has blossomed into starring roles in several successful films and television shows. She trained in LA and New York and has worked globally with world-renown Chinese director and artist Zhuangzhuang Tian, Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), among other great filmmakers. Ayumi's performance in the the Fuji TV drama Belle de Jour was so strong that she reprised the role when it became a feature film and box-office hit, earning over 2.3 billion JPY. She is also the voice of Tifa Lockhart in the animated film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Off-screen, Ayumi is a talented vocalist and recording artist. Her passion for art continues to thrive and she brings characters to life in her performances.
Acting credits
7.5Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yūichi Hasumi and Shūsuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yūichi's love for the dreamy and abstract music of pop star Lily Chou-Chou.
All About Lily Chou-Chou
2001
7.2Two years have passed since the final battle with Sephiroth. Though Midgar, city of mako, city of prosperity, has been reduced to ruins, its people slowly but steadily walk the road to reconstruction. However, a mysterious illness called Geostigma torments them. With no cure in sight, it brings death to the afflicted, one after another, robbing the people of their fledgling hope.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
2005
6.5After trying to rescue a man on the subway tracks, two teens wake up in a room dominated by a mysterious black sphere that sends them to hunt down and kill aliens hiding on Earth.
Gantz
2010
6.6Summoned by the black sphere, Kei and Masaru fight against extraterrestrials until Masaru grows tired of fighting and refuses to continue.
Gantz: Perfect Answer
2011
6.9Three distinct tales unfold in the bustling city of Tokyo. Merde, a bizarre sewer-dweller, emerges from a manhole and begins terrorizing pedestrians. After his arrest, he stands trial and lashes out at a hostile courtroom. A man who has resigned himself to a life of solitude reconsiders after meeting a charming pizza delivery woman. And finally, a happy young couple find themselves undergoing a series of frightening metamorphoses.
Tokyo!
2008
7.5The struggles of a group of outcasts living in "Yentown", in an alternate-future Japan.
Swallowtail Butterfly
1996
6.4At the end of WWII, Japanese doctor Akagi searches for the cure for hepatitis in the prisoner-of-war camp.
Dr. Akagi
1998
10.0Seven years after the events of “Chaser Game W2: The Beautiful Celestial Maidens”—Itsuki and Fuyu now live in Ito City, Shizuoka Prefecture, with their daughter Tsuki, who is in middle school. Amid their busy daily lives filled with housework, parenting, and work, the time they spend together has gradually become something they take for granted. Over the course of those seven years, their relationship has shifted from “lovers” to “family,” and subtle emotional distance has begun to emerge between them. Though their hearts are shaken by each other’s casual words and actions, they continue to maintain the appearance of a peaceful household. However, their daughter Tsuki senses the growing unease between her parents. One day, after getting caught up in trouble, Tsuki is helped by a taxi driver named Kozue. This encounter becomes a turning point, prompting Itsuki and Fuyu to finally confront their true feelings and reexamine the form their love has taken as it drifted apart.
Chaser Game W: A Match Made in Heaven
2026
7.0Kaoru, a wealthy woman whose youth is fading, abandons the hustle and bustle of the city to live peacefully in a home on the coast. There, she takes care of an old deaf, dumb and blind man as if he were an insect, a child or a pet. He can’t do anything for himself, so she feeds him and accompanies him on his walks. This strong mutual dependency offers Kaoru an escape from society and allows her to free herself from restrictions imposed by common sense.
Crickets
2006
6.9Four people are discovered brutally murdered in an up-scale high-rise apartment. All the victims appear to be family, but as the investigation deepens it is discovered that one of the victims isn't related to the family.
The Motive
2004
7.0The background to and depiction of a watershed battle in Japanese history, at Sekigahara in 1600, when Tokugawa Ieyasu's Army of the East defeated the Army of the West of Ishida Mitsunari. The story includes the intrigues and shifting loyalties of the various retainers, family members, and samurai.
Sekigahara
2017
7.2The year is 1987 and Japan is just reaching the peak of its economic success. Eighteen-year old Yonosuke Yokomichi arrives in Tokyo from Nagasaki. Ordinary in every way possible, he lives in a suburb far from the excitement of the big city and commutes to a university in the center of Tokyo.
A Story of Yonosuke
2013
5.6Higashigaoka Junior High School is in turmoil as one of the pupils, Noguchi, who had been bullied, attempted suicide last term. On the first day of the new term, a substitute teacher arrives to take the second year class. When the teacher, Murauchi (Hiroshi Abe), introduces himself, the pupils are surprised by his stutter. He has a speech impediment. Unable to speak eloquently, Murauchi faces his pupils with ‘words of truth’. His first instruction to the pupils is to return Noguchi’s desk and chair to the original place in the classroom. Every morning Murauchi greets the empty desk, “Good morning, Noguchi.” This causes a ripple beyond the classroom and among other teachers and parents, but Murauchi will not stop doing it. Eventually the day comes when Murauchi must leave.
The Blue Bird
2008
7.6In this drama set on Shikina Island, a far-flung island of the Japanese archipelago located more than six hours from the Japanese main islands, the young physician Kensuke Goto arrives at the island and has to deal with the island's inhabitants, not eager to accept him, at a clinic lacking sufficient medical equipment. Here's a human drama showing how Dr. Coto values the dignity of human life while unflinchingly facing disease with a serious attitude.
Dr. Coto's Clinic
2022
7.0Two teenage best pals attracted to the same boy end up scrambling his life after he walks into a door and is knocked unconscious.
Hana & Alice
2004
5.4Set 3 years after the drama series. Kitano Yuichiro comes to give a lecture in the town where divorcee Sasamoto Sawa now lives quietly. The two meet again and their love story continue.
Hirugao
2017
6.4A mother and daughter are stranded in small, isolated cabin, and are starving to death. In order to survive, they plan to entice men that happen to stray to their cabin with sex, and kill them. All goes well until a local cop shows up and, then, an old relation.
Owl
2003
6.5After the destruction of Nibelheim at the hands of Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud are on the run from Shinra Inc. As they make their way back to Midgar, they recall the horrible events that happened at Nibelheim, as well as fight for survival against Shinra.
Final Fantasy VII: Last Order
2005
6.9Adapted from the bestselling Japanese autobiography of the same title, this gentle coming-of-age drama concerns an adolescent boy, Boku - Masaya, torn between the inherited recklessness of his father Oton and the inherited responsibility, wisdom and emotional strength of his mother Okan. Following a period of intensely rebellious behavior, Boku learns that his mom has contracted cancer; suddenly, his mother comes to live with him in Tokyo the entire emotional landscape of his life is altered.
Tokyo Towers: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad
2007
6.9When lightning strikes a theater about to close its doors, three moviegoers are thrust back in time to the world inside the screen.
Labyrinth of Cinema
2020
7.1The murder of a young girl leaves the inhabitants of a small Japanese village in shock. The body of Emili is found by four classmates with whom she was playing. The murder is never solved. Emili's mother, Asako, is torn by grief and puts a curse on the four girls when they claim not to remember the killer's face. Each of the girls, in their own way, will do penance for their silence.
Penance
2013
7.0On 17 May 1936–during a period of war, economic depression, public unease and growing militarism, a time of unrest and confusion when public opinion was, at best, unpredictable–Sada Abe killed and emasculated her lover. Condemned by the law, Sada finds herself lionised by the press and hailed as a 'saint' of love. Because hers was a crime of passion, the purity of her motivation elevates her from criminal to heroine.
Sada
1998
6.2Mysterious deaths befall on employees of a VR-tech company. There's an unprecedented fear waiting between reality and the virtual world.
Immersion
2023
6.9Meiko and Taneda are a couple graduated from university two years ago. Unhappy with their lives, Meiko quits her job and encourages Taneda to have his band become professional.
Solanin
2010