VIDEO: Sang-il Lee on Honoring the Art Of Kabuki In ‘Kokuho’

Japan’s International Feature Oscar submission is Sang-il Lee’s mesmerizing epic, Kokuho, which spans 50 years in the life of a Kabuki actor.

Stunningly photographed by Blue is the Warmest Color DP Sofian El Fani, this three-hour cinematic wonder begins in Nagasaki in 1964 and centers on 14-year old Kikuo (a terrific Soya Kurokawa), a budding Kabuki player who watches his father, a Yakuza leader, murdered by rival gangs. He soon finds himself mentored by Hanjiro (Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe) one of Japan’s most revered Kabuki actors. Hanjiro has a Kabuki-artist son, Shunsuke (Keitatsu Koshiyama) who Kikuo bonds with. Hanjiro rehearses the two boys mercilessly but favors Kikuo.

Kokuho spans decades as boys become men and Kabuki stars, turn on each other, suffer scandals and health crises and reconnect with one another. Kikuo, the most ambitious of the two, pays a steep price for his commitment to craft.

Lee has created a stirring tribute to the great art of Kabuki using both long shots and close-ups and allowing the theater sequences to breathe. And he’s cast the film to perfection beginning with the masterful Ryô Yoshizawa as the older Kikuo.

Kokuho is about the transformative power of art, a vital and necessary reminder in these oppressive times.

The film has become a box office sensation in Japan as the second highest grossing Japanese live-action film of all time.

Kokuho had its world premiere earlier in the year in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Lee attended Japanese Film School and, in 1999, made his award-winning medium-length film, Chong, as a graduation piece. In 2002, he co-wrote and directed his first feature film, Border Line. The acclaimed movies, 69 and Scrap Heaven followed in 2004 and 2005 respectively. In 2006, Lee made Hula Girls, a film that won numerous Japan Academy Awards including Best Film and Best Director. Subsequent films include, Villain (2010), Unforgiven —the Japanese language remake of Clint Eastwood’s Oscar winning film—(2013), Rage (2016), The Blue Hearts (2017) and Wandering (2022).

For TV, Lee directed three episodes of the popular Korean series Pachinko.

This year he was awarded the Kurosawa Akira Award for extraordinary contributions to world cinema at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

 GKIDS is releasing Kokuho in select theaters in Los Angeles on November 14^th and in New York on November 21^st, 2025.

The Contending had the privilege of speaking with the filmmaker.