Kokuhô
Kokuhô is a gripping tale of friendship and rivalry in the world of Kamigata Kabuki (a regional style of traditional Japanese theatre originating in the Kyoto and Osaka regions).
An unexpected smash hit at the Japanese box office, Kokuhô is Lee Sang-il’s long-gestating passion project, born from a fifteen-year fascination with Kabuki.
The film opens in Nagasaki in 1964 and unfolds over five tumultuous decades. It follows Kikuo – the son of a murdered yakuza boss – who, at fourteen, is taken in by a celebrated kabuki master and raised alongside Shunsuke, the master’s son and designated heir. Their bond – part brotherhood, part rivalry – drives an epic saga of ambition, sacrifice and scandal.
Sang-il Lee’s camera reveals kabuki as both exalted art and cutthroat business – built on hierarchies, family lineages and backroom politics – while skilfully introducing the uninitiated into its codes and practices. Visually sumptuous and emotionally piercing, Lee’s three-hour film is a meditation on inheritance and choice, tradition and reinvention, and the pursuit of artistic greatness – an epic told on an intimate, human scale. (source: tiff.net, adapted)