Mezon do Himiko

I got all excited about this movie, but it was not meant to be. The plot makes no sense. The characters are mostly caricatures, though there are rare heartwarming moments which have nothing to do with their actual lives as LGBT people. You see the main characters and you look forward to seeing a male-female on-screen interaction that is not a love story since they clearly have no chemistry and one of the chars is gay, but alas. No. How can you have a movie that doesn't feature hetero romance? The trans people are a caricature (Ruby is obviously not on hormones, but she had a sex change somehow?!). Himiko and her relationship with the world around her is a poor joke. They have rare moments highlighting homophobia but even then it's exaggerated.

The only reason I am giving this 5 stars and not 0 are the long shots of Odagiri Jo (not the character, the actor). Every time someone talked I'd get kind of mad, but then they would do a close up of his beautiful face and generous, drawn-out full body shots, and I would be utterly pacified. If this movie would just take out all the dialogue and other chars and simply film Odagiri Jo for 2 hours, it would improve considerably.

" Saori never liked her gay father...But when a young man comes to tell her that Himiko is dying and that the nursing home is in danger of closing, she begins to see another dimension to his life and to his work." I have seen this movie at the Montreal Film Festival in august 2005.

The young man, Jô Odagiri, and Saori, Kou Shibasaki, are superb. Min Tanaka as Himiko gives a great performance also. The story is all about accepting different people in this case: homosexual, transvestite , old person and delinquent. The music adds to the soft and tender mood of the film. I must say that the cast in supporting roles give a touching and heartwarming performance. Though it could have been a very sad story, the director always gives a touch of hope. Mezon do Himiko is a film everyone should see. Life is not always easy , let's accept other people's difference and try to help each other. It would be a better world.

It is a good idea to make a film about older gay men. However, I find the characters overly stereotypical, and there appears to be conflation between transgender people and gay people. The contrived heterosexual relationships put me off completely as well. I enjoyed the first half of the film, but I did not like the second half.