Ken Watanabe didn’t think a kabuki movie would work
TL;DR
Ken Watanabe initially doubted a kabuki film's success, but director Lee Sang-il's adaptation of 'Kokuho' became Japan's top-grossing live-action movie last year, proving him wrong.
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 …