©Courtesy of GKIDS

One of a highly anticipated Kabuki drama “Kokuho,” which stars Ryo Yoshizawa, Ken Watanabe, and Ryusei Yokohama, has been released in Japan and features the first trailer.

The second-highest-grossing Japanese live-action movie of all time is “Kokuho,” which has taken more than $104M since its June premiere. At the Japanese box office, it ranks as the 15th highest-grossing movie. Yoshizawa spent 18 months immersed in the art and history of Kabuki theater to portray an actor who works tirelessly to achieve greatness.

GKids will be distributing the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title to US theaters for an award-qualifying run, starting on November 14 in Los Angeles and November 21 in New York.

Last month, TIFF gave the North American premiere of the movie directed by Sang-IL Lee (Pachinko). The U.S. runs will commence at AMC Universal CityWalk and then move to Angelika Film Center in New York for a week. It will also be shown at AFI Fest in Los Angeles on October 24th.

Here’s the synopsis : “Nagasaki, 1964. After the death of his father, the leader of a yakuza gang, 14-year-old Kikuo is taken under the wing of a famous Kabuki actor. Alongside Shunsuke, the actor’s only son, Kikuo (Yoshizawa) decides to dedicate himself to this traditional form of theatre. Across decades, the two young men grow and evolve together – from acting school to the grandest stages – amid scandals and glory, brotherhood and betrayals, as each pushes to become the greatest living Kabuki master.

Gkids, a popular animated film distributor, has released the first live-action contemporary film since being acquired by Japanese media giant Toho almost a year ago.