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