[article] Takuya Kimura makes People magazine's list of international hunks

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Excerpt:

IT took him long enough, but Japan's Sexiest Man Takuya Kimura has finally earned a stamp of approval in the US.

US magazine People, well-known for its annual Sexiest Man Alive special issue, recently featured the Japanese actor-singer and style icon on its website as one of '10 International Males: Hot Around The Globe'.

Listed alongside British pop star Robbie Williams, French footballer Zinedine Zidane and Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan, Takuya, 34, is described to American readers as the 'Japanese Mark Wahlberg'.

His appeal? How 'he can laugh at himself'.

And the way he has 'poked fun at his heart-throb image' over the years is apparently sexy.

It is too early to tell if Hollywood fame will follow, but Takuya is definitely in his element these days.

With three new projects - a fast-selling pictorial book, a critically-acclaimed samurai film in which he plays a blind warrior and a drama shot in Shanghai - he is set to hog headlines for weeks to come.

Last month, he was also voted Favourite Man by readers of Japanese fashion magazine An An - for the 13th consecutive year.

One Singaporean fan, who wanted to be known only as Audrey, e-mailed to The New Paper to rave about Takuya's People magazine mention.

She wrote: 'We, the fans in Singapore and all over the world, are very delighted and very proud of him.'

But why did it take so long for Takuya to get noticed in the US, when he is easily one of the most famous Japanese heart-throbs in Asia?
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Making his debut in 1988 as one-fifth of boy band Smap, he has risen to become Japan's top male actor with an unbeatable TV-ratings record.

He is hailed as one of the most versatile leading men in Japan, tackling a variety of roles from romantic hero (Beautiful Life) to unorthodox lawyer (Hero) and revenge-seeking chef (One Hundred Million Stars Falling From The Sky).

Read it: Man, he's hot
Japanese idol Takuya Kimura makes People magazine's list of international hunks