A hit in Japan, where it was selected to represent the country at the Academy Awards, Kokuho is a tougher sell elsewhere.
Focusing on two kabuki rivals over a 50-year period, the film is nothing if not ambitious. Viewers unfamiliar with its mysterious world might find it hard to engage with a film nearly three hours long.
Screenwriter Satoko Okudera strives for historical accuracy, with long explanatory notes about the origins of kabuki opening the film. When kabuki began in the 17th century, performers used stylized dance and elaborate costumes to interpret tales and songs.
Kabuki became so sexually suggestive that women were banned from the stage after 1629. They were replaced by onnagata, men specializing in women's roles.
In 1964, it's not easy for Kikuo (played as an adult by Ryo Yoshizawa) to convince his father, a gangster, to let him study kabuki. After a gangland shoot-out, Kikuo is adopted by Hanjiro (Ken Watanabe), a famous kabuki actor based in Osaka.
Kikuo trains in Hanjiro's rigorous, difficult school with his son Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama), a talented but less committed performer. The two become friends but also rivals. Since kabuki is tied so closely to blood lines, Shunsuke assumes he will inherit his father's theater and win the better roles.
But Kikuo wins most of the acclaim and eventually Hanjiro's theater. Later, Hanjiro's widow and estate wrest the theater away from Kikuo, handing it to Shunsuke.
The balance of power between the two shifts over the decades. At one point Kikuo is reduced to performing in a roadside bar. Their rivalry is the film's only legitimate narrative issue.
Instead of an involving plot, Kokuho offers the splendor of kabuki, performed and shot with meticulous care. Among the many excerpts of songs: "Snowbound Barrier," "Two Lions," "Wisteria Maiden," and the famous "Temple Maiden," reprised a number of times.
Director Lee Sang-il stages these brilliantly, DP Sofian El Fani's camera swirling around, up, and below the performers. Even the rehearsals are fascinating. When Kikuo and Shunsuke practice by a river, the camera spies on them from the water, then from a bridge, then under blossoming cherry trees.
The film, which is based on Shuichi Yoshida's novel, was an unexpected blockbuster in Japan. But like kabuki itself, Kokuho has little chance of widespread acceptance outside the festival circuit.
The film screened as a Gala Presentation at this year's Busan International Film Festival.