{"id":203226,"date":"2025-11-27T15:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T15:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/203226\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T15:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T15:44:08","slug":"kokuho-sets-live-action-record-for-a-local-film-at-japanese-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/203226\/","title":{"rendered":"Kokuho Sets Live-Action Record For A Local Film At Japanese Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLee Sang-il<\/a>\u2019s kabuki drama Kokuho<\/a> has set a new record in Japan, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film ever in the market with over $111M at the local box office. The Ken Watanabe<\/a>-starrer is Japan\u2019s entry for the International Feature Oscar and was released for one-week qualifying runs by GKids<\/a> in the U.S. on November 14 in Los Angeles and November 21 in New York. The estimated gross for those engagements is more than $60K.<\/p>\n

\n\tOriginally debuting in Directors\u2019 Fortnight at Cannes last May, the movie hit Japanese cinemas on June 6 and continues to play. As of earlier this week, after 172 days in theaters, the film has sold over 12.3 million tickets and surpassed \u00a517,377,394,500 ($111M).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKokuho\u2019s performance breaks a 22-year-old record previously held by 2003\u2019s Bayside Shakedown 2, according to local reporting service Kogyo Tsushinsha. It is now the No. 11 movie ever in the market. Per the same service, there are only two live-action movies in the Top 10: Titanic and Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKokuho\u2018s story begins in 1964 Nagasaki when, following the death of his yakuza gang leader father, 14-year-old Kikuo is taken under the wing of famous kabuki actor Hanjiro Hanai (Watanabe). Alongside Shunsuke, the actor\u2019s only son, Kikuo decides to dedicate himself to this traditional form of theater. For decades, the two young men grow and evolve together \u2013 from acting school to the grandest stages \u2013 amid scandals and glory, brotherhood and betrayals\u2026 one of them will become the greatest Japanese master of the art of kabuki. Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama play the friends\/rivals. <\/p>\n

\n\tDuring Cannes, Lee told us<\/a> that \u201ceven in Japan, it\u2019s been 80 years since a movie has had Kabuki as the theme. You can see, just by that metric, kabuki is something that is very difficult to adapt to cinema. I think that there\u2019s this very secretive aspect to kabuki between protecting the bloodlines and hierarchy.\u201d Lee also said that training the actors in the art of kabuki took a year-and-a-half. Watanabe concurred, \u201cIt\u2019s hard work\u2026 The child actors and the adults, I have really deep respect for their commitment\u2026 The performance in the theaters is just 30 minutes, but we shot 10 hours more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKokohu is produced by Aniplex in association with Myriagon Studio, Amuse Inc, Toho Co Ltd., Lawson Inc. and Credeus. GKids will release the film wide in North American theaters early next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019d like to congratulate the Kokuho film team on this incredible milestone,\u201d said GKids\u2019 President Dave Jesteadt. \u201cThe historic box office success in Japan demonstrates that the film is a must-see theatrical event, with many Japanese audiences returning to cinemas multiple times to experience its immersive beauty. After our own sold-out previews, we look forward to sharing this deeply emotional modern classic with American audiences early next year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film is based on the novel of the same name by Shuichi Yoshida and written by Satoko Okudera. Other festival play has included TIFF and AFI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee Sang-il\u2019s kabuki drama Kokuho has set a new record in Japan, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[34387,18,117,23888,19,5845,17,89156,53747,53748,327,7012],"class_list":{"0":"post-203226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-best-international-feature-film","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-gkids","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-international-box-office","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-ken-watanabe","16":"tag-kokuho","17":"tag-lee-sang-il","18":"tag-movies","19":"tag-oscars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115622436094626145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}