INTERNATIONAL

News from other countries; translations and selections from homofile magazines abroad.

Kabuki Impersonators, Intimate Clubs, International Atmosphere Characterize Japanese Gay Life

Gay life in the neon-charged paradise land of the cherry blossoms Tokyo, Japan, is a unique blend of medieval and metropolitan culture that reveals post-war Japan as an intriguing excursion of Oriental charm and custom mirroring a new and original slant of homosexual relations and problems.

The motion picture censored item in America

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a much appears

in Japan as a bold and realistic work of art in the world's third largest city. It is a frank panorama reflecting all classes of life, both feudalistic and modern, in its untiring effort for realism and honesty; the only unfortunate note being the cliche-ridden standard suicidal anticlimax. But the Nipponese have produced a more advanced and mature picture than usual in the Adolescent Spook Story which unfolds in dramatic black and white shadows the story of a prima ballerina of promising talent who is endowed with physical male characteristics and the body of a woman, as a different slant on a segment of our life, and a girl's quest for happiness and fulfillment within its confines.

It required a daring and demanding change of makeup for the female actress of her native land to portray such a difficult and exacting role, yet she has played her role with a rare finesse and understand-

one

By Far Eastern Correspondent

ing that is a joy to behold and a world-wide triumph of the beauty and sincerity of homosexual love.

Adolescent Spook Story is a delightfully optimistic stroke, and it is unfortunate that foreign film distributors will probably bar it from export. For, unlike the award-studded Rashomon, Ugetsu, and Gate of Hell, this film is indicative of the majority of Nipponese products intended for domestic enjoyment only. It is only the prestige pictures which leave the Japanese soil. This is a film which all adherents of One Inc. should see and acclaim, as it is one of the first pictorial efforts to mirror the homosexual love scene in a constructive way.

Perhaps its inception is a direct outgrowth of the Japanese drama called Kabuki. The Kabuki troupes have so impregnated Nipponese culture and custom that they are still high on the preference list and overshadow all but a few attempts to present such modern dramas as A Streetcar Named Desire on the Japanese stage. Kabuki is highly instilled in the Oriental's blood as the summit of the actor's skill, and though most of its repertoire consists of feudalistic plays of the 17th and 18th Centuries, it is doubtful if the modern drama will come to the fore for many years.

those uninitiated, Kabuki