In 1928, during the Kabuki tour, Sergei Mikhailovich became friends with the leader of the troupe and with its actors, among whom Chôjûrô Kawarasaki stood out. The young luminary of ‘Kabukiza’, in his turn, was interested in Eisenstein’s works and visited the set of his film. This friendship between the “star” of Japanese theater and the innovative Soviet director was not an accident. Kawarasaki was among those who reinvented the art of Kabuki and brought its legacy into cinema. He was filmed by the great directors Sadao Yamanaka and Kenji Mizoguchi. In 1941, he played the role of ronin Kuranosuke Oishi in Mizoguchi’film Genroku Chûshingura (The 47 Ronin) based on one of the Kabuki plays which Sadanji’s troupe performed in Moscow. In his article “An Unexpected Juncture” (1929), Eisenstein wrote that the play Kanadehon Chûshingura suggested figurative use of sound in cinema to him.