Rina Takeda

The Sharp Strike of Yokohama

Rina Takeda needed no stunt doubles to smash ten roof tiles with her forehead in a TV commercial in 2014. That image went viral around the world, but her real story began long before, in a Yokohama dojo. She was ten years old when she watched her father lose a karate tournament and decided she would never go through the same thing.

She trained in Ryukyu Shorin-ryu until she earned her second-dan black belt. Her move into film was not an aesthetic choice but a direct result of her physical strength.

The result was a powerful impact.

In 2009 director Fuyuhiko Nishi sought authenticity for High Kick Girl! and found it in a teenager who preferred taking real blows to faking them. He wasn't looking for an actress who would learn to fight but for a martial artist who could sustain a one-take combat sequence without edits to hide her shortcomings.

From the Dojo to Gore Surrealism

In 2011 she starred in Karate Girl, and international audiences took notice of her roundhouse kicks. But genre cinema in Japan is a treacherous field where it's easy to get stuck playing the vigilante schoolgirl. So she decided to explore the limits of the absurd.

Her collaboration with Noboru Iguchi in 2012 on Dead Sushi shifted her toward surrealism and bloody comedy. Here, Takeda fought mutant food and showed a physical ability that went well beyond pure martial arts technique.

And the gamble paid off.

Despite the eccentricity of Iguchi's scripts, her discipline never wavered. In 2015 she began her run on the series Wakako Zake, playing an office worker who enjoys food and sake on her own. The show reached its seventh season in 2023.

Maturing behind the camera

Her shift toward down-to-earth drama didn't mean giving up the gym. During 2022 she worked on the film Tell Me, and in 2024 she took part in filming Kaze no Kanata e. These projects show an actress who prefers silence and minimal gestures over the flashiness of her early years.

Rina Takeda has appeared in more than thirty movies without giving up her identity as a professional karateka. Her growth shows in her choice of roles, though, which don't always settle their conflicts with a kick to the chin.

Her schedule for 2025 includes productions that mix rural drama with brief appearances in low-budget action films. She keeps a three-hour daily training routine before stepping onto any film set.

The actress still lives in Japan and turns down most offers that require wires or digital effects for her fight scenes. The contract for her latest production in 2024 specifies that physical contact in the choreography must be real.