Queer Vision 20/20: Black Lizard

Jun 18, 2015

(Fukasaku Kinji, 1968, Japan, 86 min)

Happy hour at 7pm, screening at 8pm

Co-presented with Three Dollar Bill Cinema

“How does one describe Fukasaku Kinji's rare 1968 film Black Lizard? What happens when Mishima Yukio, the bisexual writer who was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize of Literature and descendant of a shogun, adapts a play based on a 1934 novel by Edogawa Rampo (bilingual pun of Edgar Allan Poe) into a stylish detective film noir about Black Lizard, a criminal genius who hand picks the most beautiful boys and girls to be abducted, murdered and immortalized as statues?  Did I mention that Black Lizard is portrayed by Mishima's lover, Maruyama Akihiro, Japan's celebrated female impersonator? You won't believe it until you see this truly bizarre film that belongs in the canon of queer cinema.”

--Ro Yoon

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