Comedy

Natchan’s Little Secret

ひみつのなっちゃん 。

Directed by: Yasujirō Tanaka
2023 / 97 minutes / Unclassified all ages

Official Website

Three queens on the road trip of a lifetime!

A drag queen and owner of a gay bar in Tokyo’s vibrant Shinjuku, Natchan carried her gender identity to the grave and hid it from everyone outside her community – including her own mother. Left to mourn are her family of queens, now faced with an unforeseen reality: they have no clue of her address, origin, or legal family. Virgin, Morilyn and Zubuko find themselves bickering their way on the road to Natchan’s funeral in a remote town in the mountains, determined to keep their identities from posthumously exposing her.  

Japan harbours both a beautiful cultural history of gender-bending performance (such as in traditional Noh and kabuki theatre and the women’s theatrical troupe Takarazuka), and like many countries, a contemporary social stigma around it. Grappling with an all-too-common reality of the LGBT+ closet, this comedy has an underlying sense of cultural complexity, and is a heartfelt road trip into self-expression, family and reckoning with loss and acceptance.

Lucky Door Giveaway: Your chance to win a Choya prize in Sydney and Melbourne! See below for dates.
Audience warning: contains mild violence, mild themes of death and discrimination, mild language, mild verbal reference to sexual assault

Thursday 12th October
18:00
Concluded

Palace Electric, Canberra

Tuesday 17th October
19:30
Concluded

Palace Raine Square, Perth

Thursday 19th October
19:00
Concluded

Palace Barracks, Brisbane

Saturday 21st October
20:30
Concluded

Palace Barracks, Brisbane

Tuesday 24th October
20:00
Concluded

Includes Lucky Door Prize

The Kino, Melbourne

Wednesday 25th October
20:30
Concluded

Palace Balwyn, Melbourne

Sunday 29th October
14:15
Concluded

Includes Lucky Door Prize

Palace Norton Street, Sydney

Tuesday 31st October
18:00
Concluded

Palace Verona, Sydney

Screens in: Canberra, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney

Director: Yasujirō Tanaka

Cast: Kenichi Takitō, Shū Watanabe, Tomoya Maeno and Chieko Matsubara

Genre: Comedy

Language(s): Japanese with English subtitles

Format: DCP colour