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weekend watch

Queer Japanese films to stream after you watch Netflix’s ‘The Boyfriend’

By Lee Meyer July 12, 2024 at 3:00pm
Image Credit: ‘The Boyfriend,’ Netflix

Welcome to your weekend streaming recommendations, a.k.a. the Weekend Watch, a handy guide to the queerest film and TV content that’s just a click away!

Dating shows are a dime a dozen these days, but Netflix has just released a genuinely groundbreaking take on the genre in The Boyfriend, a Japanese series featuring nine gorgeous guys living in a gorgeous house by a gorgeous seaside. The show’s “contestants” are much more real and genuine than your typical unhinged Netflix dating show (we’re looking at you, Love Is Blind) and explores what it means to be gay in modern-day Japan. Japanese culture is very different from the Western world, and this show highlights how Japanese tradition has made for a very different queer experience. 

In honor of The Boyfriend, here are four queer Japanese films to stream this weekend.

Funeral Parade Of Roses

This groundbreaking 1969 film, directed by Toshio Matsumoto, is a modern take on Oedipus Rex set against the backdrop of the queer Tokyo underground. Eddie (played by performance artist Eddie, the stage name of Shinnosuke Ikehata), whose father left when she was very young, works at a gay bar run by local drug lord Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya), and the two embark on an affair. This film is considered one of the great Japanese gay films, with experimental filming techniques and queer performers. It’s also very explicit, with graphic sex and violence. Not to be missed!

Now streaming on Nightflight Plus, Apple TV and Kanopy.

Monster

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s beautiful 2023 drama, told from three different perspectives, is the story of Minato (Sōya Kurokawa), a young boy exhibiting behavioral problems at school. His mother, Saori (Sakura Andō) is convinced that Minato is being physically abused by his teacher, Hori (Eita Nagayama). But when Hori reveals that Minato has been bullying another student, Yori (Hinata Hiiragi), the conflict becomes a strange mystery that slowly unravels to reveal a touching coming-of-age tale of young love and overcoming shame. We won’t reveal where Monster goes, but we guarantee you it’s not what you think.

Now streaming on Mubi and Apple TV+. Available to rent or buy digitally on Fandango At Home, Microsoft Store, and Amazon.

His

Directed by Rikiya Imaizumi, this 2020 drama chronicles the decades-long love story of Shun (Hio Miyazawa) and Nagisa (Kisetsu Fujiwara), who have an intense love affair in college and are reunited 13 years later, when Nagisa returns to Japan from Australia with his child and wants to resume their relationship. This tender film explores Japan’s views on same-sex couples who want to be parents when Shun and Nagisa attempt to raise Nagisa’s daughter together.

Now streaming on Fandor and Asiancrush. 

Queer Japan

This 2019 documentary, directed by Graham Kolbein, explores the many facets of Japan’s LGBTQ+ population, including drag queens, trans people, gay men, and lesbians, through many colorful and creative interviews conducted by Kolbein over three years. This documentary is fun, whimsical, poignant and informative, casting a light on a culture that many people in the Western world may not be familiar with.

Now streaming on Roku, Tubi, Kanopy, Runtime, and Strand Releasing.

The Kicker…

Check out this hilarious and intentionally problematic SNL sketch, “J-Pop America Fun Time Now!” in which two incredibly racist college students (Taran Killam and Vanessa Bayer) appropriate what they think is Japanese culture for a “public access” TV show.

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