DIRECTOR: Lee Sang-il
STARRING: Ryo Yoshizawa, Ryusei Yokohama, Ken Watanabe, Mitsuki Takahata, Shinobu Terajima
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 54 minutes
LANGUAGE: Japanese
PLOT: After the death of his yakuza father, 15-year-old Kikuo is taken in by a renowned kabuki actor. Under his guidance, and alongside the actor’s only son, Shunsuke, Kikuo devotes himself to mastering the ancient art of kabuki. Over the decades, the two young men grow, rival, and transform together, until one of them emerges as the greatest kabuki performer of his generation.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Kansai region, Japan
To check out all previous submissions for Japan, click HERE.
STARRING: Ryo Yoshizawa, Ryusei Yokohama, Ken Watanabe, Mitsuki Takahata, Shinobu Terajima
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 54 minutes
LANGUAGE: Japanese
PLOT: After the death of his yakuza father, 15-year-old Kikuo is taken in by a renowned kabuki actor. Under his guidance, and alongside the actor’s only son, Shunsuke, Kikuo devotes himself to mastering the ancient art of kabuki. Over the decades, the two young men grow, rival, and transform together, until one of them emerges as the greatest kabuki performer of his generation.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Kansai region, Japan
To check out all previous submissions for Japan, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“I wasn't praying to God. I was making a deal with the Devil."
Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho is a magnificent, soul-stirring meditation on art, time, and devotion. With a scope that spans decades yet an intimacy that feels immediate, the film traces the journey of Kikuo Tachibana, a young man orphaned by violence and reborn within the disciplined world of kabuki. What begins as an act of refuge becomes a lifelong pursuit of beauty and mastery. Through Lee’s elegant storytelling, kabuki emerges not merely as performance but as a living language of inheritance, an art form that connects the mortal and the eternal.
Every frame of Kokuho radiates with reverence. The film’s visual composition is breathtaking, weaving together stage and life with painterly precision. Sofian El Fani’s cinematography captures the textures of wood, silk, and skin in soft, immersive light, while Lee’s camera moves with the rhythm of ritual, unhurried, deliberate, and profoundly graceful. The editing allows the story to breathe, creating a hypnotic balance between spectacle and silence. There are sequences of such visual harmony that they feel almost sacred, moments where art and emotion dissolve into one another.
Lee Sang-il directs with deep empathy and patience, grounding his epic not in grandeur but in the quiet persistence of creation. He evokes the passing of time not through exposition but through gestures, sounds, and the evolution of space itself. The film’s score echoes this restraint, subtle, haunting, and contemplative, reminding us that art’s true power lies in what it leaves unsaid. Kokuho unfolds like a ceremony, inviting viewers to surrender to its rhythm rather than consume it.
Kokuho is about the invisible nature of true artistry. Real beauty, Lee suggests, is not something that can be seen, it is something felt, transmitted, and carried within. The title, meaning “national treasure,” is both an honor and a paradox: to become one with art is to disappear into it. Through Kikuo’s devotion, the film celebrates the endurance of tradition and the quiet transcendence that arises when an individual gives everything to something larger than themselves. Kokuho is not just a film about kabuki, it is itself an act of devotion.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“I wasn't praying to God. I was making a deal with the Devil."
Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho is a magnificent, soul-stirring meditation on art, time, and devotion. With a scope that spans decades yet an intimacy that feels immediate, the film traces the journey of Kikuo Tachibana, a young man orphaned by violence and reborn within the disciplined world of kabuki. What begins as an act of refuge becomes a lifelong pursuit of beauty and mastery. Through Lee’s elegant storytelling, kabuki emerges not merely as performance but as a living language of inheritance, an art form that connects the mortal and the eternal.
Every frame of Kokuho radiates with reverence. The film’s visual composition is breathtaking, weaving together stage and life with painterly precision. Sofian El Fani’s cinematography captures the textures of wood, silk, and skin in soft, immersive light, while Lee’s camera moves with the rhythm of ritual, unhurried, deliberate, and profoundly graceful. The editing allows the story to breathe, creating a hypnotic balance between spectacle and silence. There are sequences of such visual harmony that they feel almost sacred, moments where art and emotion dissolve into one another.
Lee Sang-il directs with deep empathy and patience, grounding his epic not in grandeur but in the quiet persistence of creation. He evokes the passing of time not through exposition but through gestures, sounds, and the evolution of space itself. The film’s score echoes this restraint, subtle, haunting, and contemplative, reminding us that art’s true power lies in what it leaves unsaid. Kokuho unfolds like a ceremony, inviting viewers to surrender to its rhythm rather than consume it.
Kokuho is about the invisible nature of true artistry. Real beauty, Lee suggests, is not something that can be seen, it is something felt, transmitted, and carried within. The title, meaning “national treasure,” is both an honor and a paradox: to become one with art is to disappear into it. Through Kikuo’s devotion, the film celebrates the endurance of tradition and the quiet transcendence that arises when an individual gives everything to something larger than themselves. Kokuho is not just a film about kabuki, it is itself an act of devotion.
