Yuri Nakamura

Yuri Nakamura was born Yuri Sei (also known by her Korean name Woori Song) on 15 March 1982 in Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture. Her father was a third-generation Zainichi Korean and her mother was born in Korea; Nakamura held South Korean citizenship while building a career almost entirely in Japanese film and television. She grew up between two names and two cultures, later saying she had no wish to hide her background but also no need to announce it at every turn.

She entered show business through the Asayan singing audition and debuted in 1998 in the pop duo YURIMARI with friend Mari Izawa. The unit dissolved in 1999. After a quiet stretch she reinvented herself as an actress in 2003, appearing in films, dramas and music videos. Her breakthrough came in 2007 as Keiko Ri (Kyonja) in Pacchigi! Love & Peace, the sequel to a landmark film about Zainichi Korean youth. The role brought her the Osaka Cinema Festival Newcomer Award and the National Imaging Actress Award, and it fixed her public image as a performer who could carry both tenderness and steel.

That same year she led Tengoku kara no Love Letter (Love Letter from Heaven). Stage work followed, including the company production 1945 in 2008. Over the next decade and a half she became one of Japanese cinema's most reliable supporting and character leads: horror in Ju-On: Black Ghost, family drama in Hirokazu Kore-eda's I Wish and Like Father, Like Son and After the Storm, historical pieces, and later Fukushima 50. On television she moved through morning dramas and prestige series, including Good Doctor, Kurosagi, Beyond Goodbye on Netflix, Romantics Anonymous, and the double-lead comedy Tonight Is Ko no Ji De, her first commercial continuous-drama starring role at 37. She also played Omasa across several Onihei installments and appeared in the Fuji TV Monday 9 p.m. series 119 Emergency Call.

In 2013 she moved from Avex Management to Alpha Agency. Colleagues and fans often called her a beautiful supporting player who lit up scenes without stealing them. She remained close to dancer-actress Asuka Kitabayashi and to her YURIMARI partner MARI. She never married.

Cancer shaped much of her thirties and forties. Around 2013 she was treated for cancer; she and her agency president agreed not to tell colleagues the disease name so as not to worry them. She went into remission, kept working and never skipped check-ups. In January 2025 cancer was found again. Surgery succeeded, but metastasis followed. With a full cure unlikely, she chose to manage the disease while staying as active as possible, studying her condition carefully and taking her doctor's encouragement to keep working. In July 2026 she withdrew from the upcoming NHK drama Dangerous because of an intestinal obstruction. In August another bowel obstruction brought a short prognosis. Alpha Agency said she faced those final weeks calmly, with her gentle smile, and spent them with family and people she loved.

Nakamura died of rectal cancer on 1 September 2026 in a Tokyo hospital, aged 44. A private funeral was held with relatives, agency actors and staff. The agency announced her death on 14 September, thanking fans and co-workers and asking the press to respect the family's privacy. Tributes poured in from Ryohei Suzuki, MARI, NHK, drama productions and audiences who had followed her from Pacchigi to her last film appearance in A Moon in the Ordinary. She left a body of work that bridged idol pop, Zainichi storytelling, Kore-eda's quiet cinema and contemporary streaming drama, and a public example of an actor who kept working, carefully and kindly, while carrying a private fight with illness.