Kokuho

I'm looking forward to this!

It's on my watch list, too. Everyone who watched it was enthralled, even if they weren't interested in kabuki.

We just seem to have to wait and wait for these exciting films in the UK and by the time they are screened over here, one's armour has somewhat dissipated!

I'm going to finally see 'Kokuho' at an art cinema in Exeter, tomorrow I didn't have to wait so long, after all!

What an incredibly beautiful! It is three hours long but enthrallingly visually beautiful.

The narrative begins melodramatically in 1964 Nagasaki. Following the tragic murder of his Yakuza boss father, young Kikuo is taken in by a revered Kabuki master. There, he trains alongside the master's biological son, Shinsuke. As decades pass and the boys grow into men, an electric and poignant tension takes hold. Their dynamic evolves from brotherhood to a fiercely competitive clash between Kikuo's transcendent natural talent and Shinsuke's devoted adherence to tradition.

Visually, Kokuhō is an absolute triumph. Cinematographer Sofian El Fani captures the ornate costumes, exquisite stage makeup, and delicate architecture with breathtaking clarity. The stage performances are filmed with a loving, lingering gaze, bringing the rigorous artistry of onnagata (men playing female roles) to life. These theatrical interludes do more than just showcase a beautiful 400-year-old art form; they serve as a stunning metaphor for the characters' personal lives, masking offstage pain and tragedy beneath brilliant oshiroi makeup.

I really enjoyed!

A bit on the business side of Toho Studio's success:

The film Kokuhō (国宝), which swept 10 categories at this year's Japan Academy Film Prize ceremony in March, has become one of Japan's biggest box-office successes in decades. Its performance also helped push major distributor and production company Toho back to record profits.

The movie, centred on the world of traditional kabuki theatre and the lives of its actors, surpassed 20 billion yen in box office revenue. That is considered an extraordinary figure in Japan, where domestic films are generally already seen as major hits once they pass the 1 billion yen mark. Its success also marked the first time in 22 years that a Japanese film broke the country's domestic box-office record.

The distributor behind the blockbuster is Toho, the company best known internationally for creating Godzilla. Toho dominated the Japanese box office last year. The company distributed eight of the country's top 10 highest-grossing films, including the year's biggest hit, Demon Slayer, and Kokuhō. That has left the company in a position few rivals in the industry can really match at the moment. For the fiscal year ending February 2026, Toho reported consolidated net profit of 51.7 billion yen, up 19 per cent from the previous year. It was the company's first return to record-high earnings in two years.