In Sang-Il Lee’s Kokuho, Kikuo (Ryo Yoshizawa) becomes an apprentice of Hanai Hanjiro II (Ken Watanabe) after the death of his father, training alongside the master Kabuki actor’s only son Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama) to learn the esteemed art. As Kikuo and Shunsuke grow and are presented with opportunities, the enduring nature of their friendship is tested.
Awards Buzz spoke with Watanabe about his initial concern about making a film about Kabuki:
“I don’t have a lot of experience with Kabuki. Sometimes, I’ve seen my friends who are Kabuki actors’ performances. But not a lot. Then I got an offer about this movie and I said, really? I suggested to the director not to do it. You couldn’t do it, it’s so difficult. It’s tough work as a normal actor playing a Kabuki actor. It’s a totally different style of acting. Kabuki actors have been training since six years old and they have this daily life on the stage, 300 days on the stage in a year. I had already read the novel, a long story, fifty years old. When I read it, it was so fantastic and I got great feelings. I also thought about the difficulty of the long-term storytelling in a two-hour or two-and-a-half-hour movie, but I’ve worked with Lee two times before. He had a great passion for making this film, so I said, okay, I’ll do that.”
He shared about the film’s tremendous success in Japan:
“Before the opening, three hours – it’s long. And Kabuki is a really difficult art in Japan for audiences also. It was a good success for the movie at first, yes, but not an explosion. Three days after the opening, social networks are really buzzing from word-of-mouth. A month later, a whole generation went to the theater. After the COVID pandemic, everyone forgot about watching things on a big screen in a theater. They remember. It’s great for the Japanese film industry.”
Watch the video above to hear about his history of working in both Japanese and international cinema and what he’d like to do next.
Kokuho is currently playing in theaters.
