Kokuho

First of all, I want to thank Feat Pictures for bringing this magical, lavish, and grand Japanese film to Indonesia. I genuinely couldn’t take my eyes off the screen while watching it. One of my favorite aspects is how carefully the film handles its use of music knowing exactly when to bring in the score and when to let silence take over. Moments of quiet often make the atmosphere hit even harder, and it’s rare to see that level of restraint and precision.

It honestly feels like a shame that the film only received an Oscar nomination for makeup. So many of its technical elements deserved recognition, especially the original score and the stunning cinematography. The close-up shots are particularly beautiful. In my opinion, the film was seriously snubbed in the Best International Feature Film category. On top of that, the drama between the two main characters is incredibly compelling, with a relationship dynamic that feels rich and well-developed.

When we first meet "Kikuo" (Soyo Murokawa) you get the distinct feeling that his Yakuza father isn't so impressed that he is performing as a kabuki actor at a luncheon. Well that doesn't matter for very long as that meeting is gatecrashed by a rival gang and the young man soon finds himself a fifteen year old orphan in the care of "Hanjiro" (Ken Watanabe) - himself reputedly the finest actor in all Japan. After a failed attempt to avenge his father, "Kikuo" (now Ryô Yoshizawa) and his now new brother "Shensuke" (Ryûsei Yokohama) overcome some initial hostility to become both friends and pupils of this most severe of taskmasters as he attempts to teach them the intricacies of his craft. Historically, the rise of this unique form of drama had drawn attention from the 18th century shogunate and for fear of it's corrupting effects on girls they had been banned from taking part - hence, just like in Shakespearean England a few centuries before, only men were allowed to participate. Luckily for both of these lads, they possess a certain femininity; a (painfully earned) litheness of limb and body and the ability to speak and sing in a falsetto so are soon quite successful as a double-act. When a tragedy strikes this family, though, it falls to the injured "Hanjiro" to select a successor. Whom he chooses really does matter as this form of performance is handed from father to son. If you are not the heir then you won't be accepted by the fraternity and this is where the first in a series of problems emerges for the two young men. One is the heir but isn't the best; one is the best but isn't the heir. When the choice is made, the relationship between "Kikuo" and "Shensuke" looks set to be changed irrevocably. Might time heal? First of all, this is a beautifully crafted piece of cinema with the use of light and the combination of traditional and more classically European music especially effective at presenting us with something of the almost visceral nature of their dedicatio...