Ken Watanabe didn’t think a kabuki movie would work

A three-hour-long period drama about kabuki, a centuries-old form of Japanese theater, doesn’t exactly sound like box office gold. But that’s exactly what happened with Kokuho. Director Lee Sang-il’s adaptation of the Shuichi Yoshida novel of the same name was a surprise hit last year, becoming Japan’s top-grossing live-action film domestically. But star Ken Watanabe – a veteran actor known for Hollywood movies like Inception and Detective Pikachu – initially didn’t think it was a good idea. He loved the novel, but worried that the art form wouldn’t translate well to film.

“‘Don’t do that,'” he remembers telling Sang-il when he first pitche …

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