Review | Kokuho movie review: Ryo Yoshizawa stuns in mesmerising epic on Japan’s kabuki theatre
Kokuho is a lavish, bewitching story of two Japanese kabuki theatre actors, raised in the same family and competing to become the best
5/5 stars
Anchored by an astonishing central performance from Ryo Yoshizawa and a fastidious devotion to the traditional art of kabuki theatre, Lee Sang-il’s sumptuous saga Kokuho emerges as the finest Japanese film of the year.
Spanning five decades in the life of a celebrated onnagata – a male performer who specialises in female roles – the film chronicles the endless dedication and heart-wrenching sacrifices required to reach the pinnacle of this bewitching art form, and the toll it takes on the individual.
Earlier this year, Kokuho became the first live-action Japanese film in more than two decades to surpass 10 billion yen (US$65 million) at the box office.
Adapted from Shuichi Yoshida’s 2018 novel, Kokuho – literally translated as “National Treasure” – opens in Nagasaki, circa 1964, with the brutal gangland slaying of a yakuza boss and his family.
The sole survivor is his 15-year-old son, Kikou (played in these early sequences by Soya Kurokawa), who is taken in by a celebrated kabuki performer (Ken Watanabe) and raised alongside his own son, Shunsuke (Keitatsu Koshiyama as a teenager, Ryusei Yokohama as an adult).