Japanese gay films: Koichi Imaizumi

[J.sharp]

Hi there,

I wonder if anyone out there with their ear to the ground in Japanese indie
filmmaking would be able to help me out of a present muddle, either on the
list or off.

It concerns Kōichi Imaizumi, an actor best known for his appearances in
Hisayasu Satō’s films.

Imaizumi has now been fairly active in the gay pink film circuit, scripting
several  films released through Okura directed by Yumi Yoshiyuki. These
include The Real Face of Men (Otome-tachi no Sugao, 1998),  I Am Lost in
Love (Boku wa Ai ni Muchū, 1999), Naughty Boys (Uwaki na Bokura, 2001)
and Sad, Maybe (Setsunai Kamo Shirenai, 2004) - these are generally my
translations, btw, so they might be a bit off!

Now, it seems that gay pink films do not screen at the Tokyo Gay and Lesbian
Film Festival, as they are considered exploitation, not art, but several of
these titles have done. Having chased up the link for the film Naughty Boys,
it seems that there are two versions of this. The jmdb credits the pink
version as directed by Yoshiyuki, containing many of the gay cliches that
the bara-zoku sub-genre seems to adhere to, while the version screened at
TGLFF seems to have been completely re-shot by Imaizumi to be a bit more
sensitive to gay viewers- I guess this second version is the one that has
been released on DVD recently in the UK.

Does anyone know the behind the scenes story behind this? Are there two
versions, and if so, how different are they?

Thanks (in anticipation),

Jasper Sharp

www.midnighteye.com
===

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