Youki Kudoh Kudos

For her American film debut, she's laden with all the hypercool accoutrements of a media-bred Japanese girl—white lipstick, a teddy-bear bag, and a staggering collection of printed T-shirts. But nineteenyear-old Youki Kudoh seems far more than the sum of studiedly trendy details. As the wide-eyed rock baby on a pilgrimage to Graceland in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train, she's an invigorating incarnation of hip innocence. Jarmusch retailored the first sequence of his cinematic triptych to custom-fit the actress (whose previous work had been seen exclusively in Japan), and with good reason. An improbable combination-of delicacy and elasticity, Kudoh breathes a ravenous sense of wonder into her scenes which perfectly sets the tone for a movie about bedazzled strangers in the strange American blues land of Memphis, Tennessee.

BEN BRANTLEY