‘Kokuho’ Review: Over Decades, an Artist’s Life
A review in Nytimes says Kokuho, directed by Sang-il Lee, became Japan’s highest grossing live-action film of all time and opens with some of the most thrilling sequences in the past year of movies, with flashes of violence and failed vengeance set in 1960s Nagasaki.
Those opening minutes establish Kikuo (Ryo Yoshizawa), the son of a yakuza boss who, after becoming orphaned, goes under the care of a revered Kabuki actor. The film, however, shifts away from a mob saga into a sweeping melodrama about a pair of Kabuki actors (Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama) that sprawls across decades and means to mimic the parables its thespians stage each night.
The first half is immersive, handsomely staged and buoyed by a beautiful score, but as the film stretches out it loses some steam and overindulges into soapier territory; at points it can feel unsure of where it is trying to go.
Japan, Nagasaki