The Frozen Moment

A look at the succession ceremony in which Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII formally inherited the storied Danjūrō name in Kabuki, Japan’s classical performing art. The film records the behind-the-scenes preparations for the actor’s name-inheritance debut performance.

This program at the Kabukiza Theatre is especially designed for people from abroad and beginners. First, you will enjoy deepening your knowledge about kabuki and the Kabukiza Theatre as you are guided by a kabuki actor with videos. Then you can enjoy a famous play featuring three thieves, and a dance in which ‘shishi’ lion-like beasts wildly shake their manes.

Famous kabuki performer Kikugoro IV performs the Lion Dance, in which a young girl is possessed by the spirit of a lion and transforms into the demonic beast.

Set in a small Nagano village in the 1930s, the film follows Hanji, a young boy captivated by a local kabuki performance. Inspired by Yukio, Hanji learns kabuki with Utako. As they grow, they become skilled actors, performing in a final kabuki before World War II. After the war, Hanji returns to revive kabuki and restore the community’s spirit. In the 1980s, as he nears death, the villagers organise a final performance in his honour, where he performs “Tenryu Koishibuki” for Yukio.

A day in a Hyatt suite gone weird

An onnagata (female impersonator) of a Kabuki troupe avenges his parents' deaths. Remade in 1963 as Yukinojô Henge.

Two young swordsmen, Akado Suzunosuke and Tatsumaki Rainoshin, arrive at the city of Edo in their quest to test and improve their skills. Soon they become involved in a conflict against a mysterious group of demonic criminals led by the king of hell, Taira no Masakado — a strugle to which both were destined since the moment they were born.

Yotsuya Kaidan

Oiwa Nagaya

Shin Yotsuya Ghost Story

Yotsuya Ghost Stories

Irohagana Yotsuya Kaidan

Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver is reassigned to a Japanese air base and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily, a by-the-book officer, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man, Joe Kelly, falls in love with a Japanese woman, Katsumi, and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.

Yotsuya Kaidan (Jitsoroku Oiwa)

Earliest japanese horror film.

Yotsuya Kaidan

Shin Yotsuya Kaidan

Yotsuya Kaidan

A reel of the Noh drama Momiji-gari, in which Danjuro Ichikawa played opposite Onoe Kikugoro V as an ogress who has disguised herself as the Princess Sarashina. Filmed by Shibata Tsunekichi in the open air on a windy day in November 1899, Danjuro would allow only the one take, so that when his fan blew away in mid-performance the scene had to stay. The film re-emerged at the Kikikan theatre in 1907 where it was a great success and inspired a wave of fiction filmmaking based on traditional Japanese narratives.

Follows the life of an illegitimate son of a kabuki actor.