脚色
きゃくしょく · kyakushoku · JLPT N1 · noun
gram
🎬 脚色 = 脚 (leg, role) + 色 (colour, type): turning a novel's story into a film script
Adapting a novel or play into a film or stage script. Its older sense was an actor's role type, so the word means reshaping source material into drama.
脚 — meat radical 月(肉) + 却 (phonetic)
脚 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 月 is the 'flesh/body' radical (from 肉), marking it as a body part. The right side 却 supplies the sound. Originally it referred to the lower leg or shin, and later broadened to mean 'foot' or 'leg' generally.
色 — person 人 (top) + kneeling figure 卩 (bottom)
Originally a pictograph showing one person above another, traditionally interpreted as depicting facial expressions or intimate posture between two people. The earliest meaning was 'facial expression' or 'countenance,' which extended to 'appearance' and eventually 'color' (the look of things). The 'shǎi' reading is a colloquial variant used for everyday color words.