Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ+ culture in contemporary Japan. From shiny pride parades to playfully perverse underground parties, Queer Japan pictures people living brazenly unconventional lives in the sunlight, the shadows, and everywhere in between. Dazzling, iconoclastic drag queen Vivienne Sato peels back the l... (Full plot summary below)
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Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ+ culture in contemporary Japan. From shiny pride parades to playfully perverse underground parties, Queer Japan pictures people living brazenly unconventional lives in the sunlight, the shadows, and everywhere in between. Dazzling, iconoclastic drag queen Vivienne Sato peels back the layers of language and identity. Maverick manga artist Gengoroh Tagame tours the world with his unapologetically erotic gay comics. Councilwoman Aya Kamikawa recounts her rocky path to becoming the first transgender elected official in Japan. At legendary kink-positive hentai party Department H, non-binary performance artist Saeborg uses rubber to create a second skin. Culled from 100+ interviews conducted over 3 years in locations across Japan, Queer Japan features dozens of individuals sharing their experiences in their own words.
Leave your thoughts about Queer Japan.
| Original-CinLiam LaceyQueer Japan serves as a series of lively snapshots of a multifaceted and shifting subject and comes up a little short on the issues of day-to-day experience of Japanese gay life. |
| Film ThreatNorman GidneyA kaleidoscopic look at a marginalized community, Queer Japan is required viewing for anyone in the community as well as their allies. |
| TheWrapSteve PondThe film is deliberately and at times deliriously scattershot, jumping from one subject to another and rarely slowing down to draw connections or make larger points. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreThere is nothing, simply nothing, to make you feel that you’ve led a sexually-sheltered life, that your understanding of the modern fluid, on-the-spectrum nature of sexuality is superficial at best, than Queer Japan. |
| The Hollywood ReporterHarry WindsorA cheerful spirit of open inquiry drives the documentary Queer Japan, in fact, which is tender, impressionistic rather than highly structured, and largely inexplicit — that amusingly candid vox pop notwithstanding. |
| VarietyOwen GleibermanI wish that “Queer Japan” had delved more into historical matters of fashion and androgyny, or into the life of someone like Yukio Mishima. It’s a very present-tense movie, but how did the movements on display evolve? Kolbeins would have done well to show us. Instead, he presents a snapshot of a revolution in midair, leaping to find a form for how to remake the future. |
| Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayThere’s a lot to see and to think about here, all well-curated by a documentarian with a clear passion for his subject. |
| User ReviewBrent_MarchantA colorful and flamboyant look at the burgeoning LGBTQ community in the Land of the Rising Sun, a long-sequestered segment of society that is now coming into its own in a big way and making a big statement in the process. The film's panoramic scope features interviews with an array of out, proud and self-aware representatives of the community, speaking about their lives, loves and contributions to not only its own culture, but also that of the nation at large. While the film tends to skew more toward the transgender segment of the community than others, it nevertheless provides an insightful look at a part of Japanese society that's aggressively seeking to make a mark and to reform longstanding closed-minded viewpoints, especially in the areas of civil rights, politics and social acceptance. A bit more balance in the overall content would have made for a better documentary, but it's an enlightening and entertaining view nonetheless. |
