Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sing, Dance, Act: Kabuki Featuring Toma Ikuta’ on Netflix, An Inside Look At Japan’s Ancient Art Form

Sing, Dance, Act: Kabuki Featuring Toma Ikuta is a new Netflix documentary that follows the titular Toma as he makes his debut in a Kabuki performance with his best friend Matsuya Onoe. How does the documentary about an ancient Japanese art form fare on the streamer?

SING, DANCE, ACT: KABUKI FEATURING TOMA IKUTA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist:When they were children, Toma Ikuta and Matsuya Onoe were performers and promised one another that they would one day perform Kabuki together. Toma went on to do theater and became a national heartthrob via a local organization called Johnny’s, while Matsuya learned Kabuki under his father, who was trained in the practice. Matsuya decides to stage a performance of one of his father’s Kabuki plays and asks Toma to play the lead role in it despite him having no experience with it. Sing, Dance, Act: Kabuki Featuring Toma Ikuta counts down the less than two months they had to prepare, and offers a behind-the-scenes look at how detail-oriented and intricate Kabuki is and how difficult it is to perfect.

What Will It Remind You Of?: At its core, Sing, Dance, Act: Kabuki Featuring Toma Ikuta is a countdown documentary, squeezing out tension from the ticking clock. It’ll remind you of The Beatles: Get Back in its precision, though it’s a fraction of the runtime.

Performance Worth Watching: Toma’s best friend since childhood, Matsuya, is the man behind the entire production, putting it on in honor of his father who was a Kabuki actor. Matsuja’s presence on screen is warm and inviting, and is Toma’s main cheerleader for much of the documentary.

Memorable Dialogue: Much of the tension of the documentary is that Toma was a classically trained theater actor who got his start as a teen idol at a local Japanese program called Johnny’s. There is a lot riding on this Kabuki performance and he reflects accordingly: “I want them to think ‘that guy from Johnny’s is gone.’ No more of that idol stuff.”

Sex and Skin: Zero.

Our Take: Offering an inside look at an artist’s preparation is a reliable documentary subject, and centering it on a less-seen art form (at least in the West) like Kabuki gives audiences an education at the same time. The film hammers home the idea that Kabuki is different and incomparable to mere theater and dance, and that actors who have not spent years training for it will not be able to master it. Enter Toma Ikuta, who is taking on the challenge in less than two months.

Toma and Matsuya are instantly magnetic and their friendship feels wholesome; neither wants to let the other down, and they both want to honor Matsuya’s father with this performance. There is so much detail about the specific craft — how precise gestures and body stature needs to be and how specific a facial expression is — and it’s helped along by a few of Toma’s skeptics who believe his timeline is too short and his skills not up to snuff to pull this off.

But, as it’s likely international audiences’ first introductions to Kabuki theater, the documentary is lacking some background on the craft itself. Many times “Kabuki families” are referenced and Toma is presented as an outsider, but it’s never explained why exactly the dance form is so exclusive and what its meaning to Japanese society at large is. Without that background, it’s a little harder to connect to Toma’s journey, even if the process is fascinating to watch.

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s a fascinating and educational look into the world of Kabuki and makes you appreciate the art form, even if it’s the first time you’re witnessing it.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.