Dawn
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15:00 Sep 07, 2025
Pensioner Shizue Kato didn’t fancy the new “Demon Slayer” anime blockbuster and instead watched “Kokuho”, a rare live-action cinema hit in Japan, where animation rules. “Many of our friends already watched the film, and they were amazed we hadn’t yet,” Kato told AFP as she emerged from a Tokyo cinema on a recent weekday. “I read the original novel,” her husband Kuni said. Lasting almost three hours, “Kokuho” is about two “onnagata”, male players of female roles in kabuki, a rarefied form of classical Japanese theatre. Lee Sang-il’s film, shot by Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fan, follows the friendship and rivalry of the son of a slain yakuza gangster and a boy born into a kabuki family. The plot is gripping but markedly more sedate than this summer’s other hit, the second movie from the “Demon Slayer” anime and manga mega-franchise. That dark fantasy, the first of a trilogy, is about sword-swishing Tanjiro Kamado’s final showdown to slay demons and make his sister human again in a kaleidoscopic castle. ...