Kuro bara no yakata

I hate to disagree with the first review, but I think this is a pretty good film. While it doesn't hold up to the first film in the series (Black Lizard), this is an impressive sequel. If only Black Lizard were available on DVD, the 2 films would make great bookends to the story. Kinji Fukasaku (of Battle Royale fame) has a writing style that many can't follow easily & has a tendency to be abrasive to some, but this film stands high in my book in the psychedelic 60's film genre. Also, not much is made of the fact that the leading lady is actually a leading man, which disturbs some, but in my opinion only enhances the camp factor. A Fun, weird caper from a time & place that no longer exists.

this film is pretty lame. I don't know whether the factoid that the leading lady is played by a man comes out or not in the plot but in the film it's pretty obvious although...for all I know I could be wrong but, I don't think so. anyway this is one of those Japanese films made with a lot of trying hard to do something but the filmmaker doesn't really know what he's doing. I am supposed to write 10 lines HM well don't rent the movie unless it's in a bunch of 3 from Norfolk's and you can send it right back without any loss to your viewing pleasure.

oh I need more lines I see. I deleted some cause I was cagily trashing some other director and I have no idea who. . . it was anyway. . . oh well go see "So Close" what else could I tell ya. is this enough lines?

This movie is basically a gorgeous showpiece for Akihiro Miwa, a famous female impersonator in Japan. Akihiro is actually a very interesting person who has written several mind-opening books about his own life and philosophies. He definitely has a stage presence and even if he doesn't fully pass as a woman physically, he has the mannerism down to a believability and he wears gorgeous clothes.

The plot is negligible and the whole movie really was thrown together to showcase Akihiro and that really is it. The cinematography is good and the colors are beautiful along with the set pieces.

I would lump this movie in with other 60's/early 70's foreign movies that mixed Poe with erotica and camp, like Vampiros Lesbos, Daughters of Darkness, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Its less a movie and more a well-choreographed documentation of a unique performer and a wild time-period.

I know there is a tradition for men playing women in Japanese theater. But in my opinion the lead looks as fascinating and pretty as John Wayne would be in a dress. That in my opinion makes the story implausible with all the men here are enchanted about her beauty. Thereby the premise of the movie get impossible to believe.

I have seen the lead in the black lizard with the same lead which I found was an okay movie. But this is for me a complete miscast. This one you can find better movies of this kind of love/desire drama.

Shochiku stylized melodrama, with Kabuki influence in that the female lead is played by a female impersonator. The unspoken irony is that this object of male desire and obsession is played by a man with a very male face, height, hands. His studied precision at mimicking traditional Japanese female characteristics makes the response of the male characters seem appropriately pathetic. Fukasaku's studied use of visual metaphor has a distancing effect. An odd, but fascinating film. Don't watch it for the plot. Watch it for the complex point of view and the lead's tour de force performance. It doesn't belong to the same category as the John Waters' films. There's no mockery here, self or other.