Why should Japanese kids care about a manga set in China's Warring States Period, (475-221 B.C.)? The players and power struggles are hard enough for professional historians (and this reviewer) to grasp, let alone 10-year-olds.
Yasuhisa Hara found a winning answer in "Kingdom," a manga that, starting in 2006, has sold more than 30 million paperback volumes, spawned an anime series and now a feature film.
Like the manga, Shinsuke Sato's screen adaptation centers on two boys — war orphans who grow up in a peasant village and become inseparable. As young men, Shin (Kento Yamazaki) and Hyou (Ryo Yoshizawa) dream of becoming great generals and uniting the country. Then, one day, soldiers come to the village and take Hyou away to the court of King Eisei, who rules one of the kingdoms contending for mastery of China.