Three flamboyant friends embark on a crazy ride in this debut film of Yasujiro Tanaka that showcases the prejudices and difficulties faced by LGBTQ people in a nation that often still wrestles with traditional values set in stone. With this project, Tanaka unleashes some fabulous helpings of LGBT culture into the discourse, and it all starts when a trio of drag queens found themselves at the receiving end of some tragic news.
Natchan's Little Secret is screening at Camera Japan
Nat-chan has a secret. From the surface, he looks like any ordinary Japanese guy working the usual nine-to-five. But his ruse comes to a grinding halt when he unexpectedly passes away, taking his secret to the grave with him. One withheld by his closest sisters: the matronly and glamorous Virgin Purity (Kenichi Takito), the gorgeous baby of the group Morilyn Stone (Shu Watanabe) and the chaotic firecracker with a sick sense of humour, Lusty Zubuko (Tomoya Maeno).
And yet, they know almost nothing about their enigmatic friend…well, except for his taste in men and gasp…his sexual fetishes! Nonetheless, overwhelmed by shock and grief, the queer musketeers travel halfway across the country to attend their former mentor's ‘final performance' where they will decide whether to reveal the truth of their beloved Nat-chan, to his family and friends.
Simplistic in its delivery, ‘' starts off on rocky ground with a quiet, decidedly tiresome trail that gives way to more than a few confusing and awkward moments. For instance, like the occasion where the girls gather at a gay soirée and dance to stock music more suited for the late 1980s or the painfully hard-to-watch scene where the threesome comes face-to-face with their late friend's mother- ersatz machismo and all. Inspiration or a lack thereof, is the pain in the heel of Tanaka's premiere production that struggled to stay relevant, resorting to the usual gamut of tired cliches to keep afloat.
Hoping to spice things up, Tanaka ropes in some narrative curveballs and nonsensical characters into the mix, throwing sense and order out the window just to fluff up an otherwise run-of-the-mill storyline. What we end up with is a capricious genre-bending production that feels like a ‘giant Katamari' in motion picture form. But if anything, the chemistry between the three lead actors is a plus point and they all deliver impressive performances. Kenichi brings a layered and multifaceted charm to Virgin Purity, Shu matches along with an understated and sassy Morilyn, and Tomoya serves some genuinely hilarious physical comedy and comic relief.
With such a strong cast, it is a pity that the direction and script were not up to the same level of standard. Dated and overinflated, ‘Natchan's Little Secret' sadly fails to live up to its original plan and is more of a relic of the past than a gem in the hand.
