Kokuho: A melodramatic tale of brotherly rivalry in the cutthroat world of kabuki
Lee Sang-il’s historical epic has made box office history in Japan, and while its depictions of traditional kabuki theatre are spellbinding, the backstage drama between two competitive performers never quite lives up to the film's vivid imagery.
Kokuho opens with explanatory text: “Kabuki originated in Kyoto in the 17th century, and the shogunate feared that it would cause moral decline. They banned women from performing, so their roles were played by men, known as onnagata.” The words are a crisp entry point to the story of Kikuo, a Yakuza orphan thrust on a path toward kabuki greatness, with plenty of collateral damage along the way. The text also heralds the moralistic bent this drama (adapted from Shuichi Yoshida’s 2018 novel of the same name) will take as its virtuoso onnagata navigates a cutthroat hierarchy over the course of 50 turbulent years.
After his father’s brutal murder in 1964, Kikuo is taken in by renowned kabuki actor Hanai Hanjiro II (Ken Watanabe), whose more privileged progeny Shunsuke is forced to equal this prodigious newcomer. The boys’ friendship is steeped in competition from the get-go, stoked by a domineering pedagogue hellbent on shunting them toward mastery.
Kikuo, an outsider in a field with rigid notions of succession, is never given a chance to be trustworthy. His adoptive mother describes him as “bottomless… an empty vessel,” and he’s told by another veteran onnagata that his beautiful face will one day consume him. Soon after, watching that same man perform in a flurry of falling snowflakes, the frigid particles blossom into flaming sparks in Kikuo’s transfixed vision. This vivid depiction of the young artist’s fate is an early peak that this three-hour film never quite lives up to.
The heated rivalry Kokuho stages between the two young men is pointedly drained of any potential homoeroticism, instead leaning on clichés of patrilineage, heterosexual jealousy, and professional dishonesty. In an unfortunate parallel to kabuki’s exclusion of women, Kokuho’s female characters are present mainly to voice the film’s moral lessons or embody them as victims of corruption and manipulation. In a pivotal scene, Kikuo’s maternal surrogate rants, “you actors, you’re such greedy creatures,” illustrating the screenplay’s tendency toward the obvious.
Directed by Japanese-Korean filmmaker Lee Sang-il with polish and ponderance, Kokuho finds frequent force during sequences committed entirely to the characters’ craft. The camera is spellbound by the art of kabuki, and the narratives they pantomime offer thoughtful refractions of the dramas transpiring offstage. Kokuho, whose title translates to “national treasure,” became the highest grossing Japanese live-action film of all time when it was released there last June – ironic for a film so wary of thunderous applause.
► Kokuho is in UK cinemas 8 May.