Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Lee Sang-il
Starring: Ryo Yoshizawa, Ryusei Yokohama, Mitsuki Takahata, Shinobu Terajima, Min Tanaka, Ken Watanabe
As I write, the biopic Michael is smashing the box office in the same reckless manner that its notorious subject smashed his way up the top of the charts. And I avoided the obvious joke there because a) The Movie Waffler is far too classy a publication for such indelicacy and b) the film itself also conspicuously swerves the insistent accusations which characterised the 'We Are Here to Change the World' hitmaker's later public image. Apparently. I haven't seen it and don't intend to, having never gelled with the concept of a biopic; a genre in which, at the very least, real life is chopped and changed and channelled into the Todorovian structures of narrative cinema (eg, the massaged timeline of Bohemian Rhapsody) and at worst wherein material is tweaked to suit ideological requirements and the whim of certain stakeholders (hence the mandated removal of all those inconvenient sexual abuse allegations in the seemingly hagiographical Michael).Yet the product is still sold as veracious, positioned as an authentic chronicle of a life and the times which couched it. What a con, eh readers?
The already celebrated Kokuho (¥20 billion at the domestic box office, an Academy Award nomination for Make Up and Hairstyling), a Japanese historical drama film directed by Lee Sang-il and written by Satoko Okudera (based on the 2018 novel by Shuichi Yoshida), doesn't even have that USP, being a quasi-biopic about a fictional actor practising within the gruellingly completive world of Kabuki. With its title cards, datelines and fealty to detailed historical representation, Kokuho maintains the distinct genre characteristics of biography along with earnest disposition of the form. Going in reasonably blind (and, admittedly, uneducated in this rich aspect of Japanese culture), as the film geared up I simply assumed that lead character Kikuo Tachibana (Ryo Yoshizawa) was based upon a real person, such is the staid and matter of fact relation of events. Furthermore, as the episodic structure of Kokuho plays out, and we leap across decades and varying circumstance, the plot eschews cumulation: rather than events causally building, instead the milestones of our central character's life periodically "happen" as they perhaps would in a genuinely historic retelling (arriving at a heroic three hours, the film was pared down from an initial four and a half hour cut which may count for the discontinuous nature).
Nonetheless, Kokuho at least opens with high drama. The year is 1964, and we see renowned Kabuki actor Hanai Hanjiro II perform a private show of Barrier Gate (thoughtfully, the film gives intertitles of the play names and mini-synopses: they're mainly about death and thwarted love ☹) for some yakuzas. Problem is, a rival mafioso group attack the show and kill Hanai Hanjiro II to death in front of his young son, Kikuo. Reeling from the murder of his father, in a theatrical variant of Bruce Wayne Kikuo dons the heavy, layered silks of the Kabuki kimonos and dramatic Kumadori makeup to honour Hanai Hanjiro II's legacy. He does also set out to wreak revenge, but, as will become characteristic of Kokuho's irregular narrative, this plot point doesn't really go anywhere.
If you are happy minded like me and have built a cultural image of Japan fed by media depictions rather than real life experience, then you may well have imagined the above scene featuring cherry blossom trees, powdery snow and pale tea sipped at chabudai framed by shoji: every jōtōku in the bunkobon. And you'd be right, as Kokuho leans heavily into the traditionally rendered conventions of Japanese culture and makes a feature of stereotypical expectations. This fidelity to heritage extends to the varied Kabuki performances which bejewel the narrative. The shows are beautiful, and you see where the Oscar nod came from. However, the issue with filming theatrical exhibition abides, which is that celluloid recording can sometimes flatten the immediacy of live performance. We watch a recording, rather than experience the febrile in-the-moment magic of the stage wherein we share and are even a part of the energy manifesting around us. In real life, the graceful movement of Kabuki overwhelms with its orchestrated momentum, like seeing a flower slowly unfurl: a kineticism which is not the same on screen (in correspondence to the immaculate staging, we see also the chaos backstage... if you are a fan of repeated sequences of white grease paint being furiously applied and de-applied then you're in luck with Kokuho...).
The epic sweep takes in bromantic rivalry, honour, a confusing subplot involving impregnating a geisha girl, and other affairs which lead to a Campbellian abyss of lost fortunes and ruined potential (at one point, post-performance of a female role, the pretty Kikuo is beaten up by some confused men à la Dirk Diggler). Throughout, Kikuo, often slathered in the aforementioned make-up, is either nominally passive or given to reactive emotional outbursts in a characterisation which is difficult to engage with and hard to like. If Kokuho was a true to life story, then such a presentation would be perhaps brave and challenging, yet as the film is a work of fiction, the effect is alienating. Analogous to its faithful but slightly flat recreation of theatre, Kokuho presents a pristine aesthetic but lacks human intensity.
Kokuho is in UK/ROI cinemas from May 8th.
