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Beautiful Mystery Director: Genji Nakamura Number of Items: 1 Format: Color Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 60 minutes Studio: Water Bearer Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2001-09-04 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 "Amaze your friends!" A real hoot! This would make a great triple bill with Schrader's bio-pic "Mishima" and Mishima's own (approx. 1/2 hour) "Rite of Love and Death." All three of these works deal somewhat with Mishima's fatal sexual obsession with Seppuku as Ritual Theatre. This one is a very funny all-male pink film, which evidently riled Japanese nationalists when it played successfully in theatres there. It's actually a well made and entertaining little curiosity that manages to be both fairly explicit (by American standards, anyway) and rather innocent at the same time. Look for Ren Osugi - who can be seen in a lot of "real" movies like "Beat" Takeshi's "Hana-Bi" ("Fireworks") - as the militaristic homosexual-cult leader. "A look at Yukio Mishima" This was reputedly Japan's first gay porn film. Director Nakamura Genji chooses an unusual story based upon recent Japanese history. Details of author Yukio Mishima and of his private army, the Shield Society's failed rebellion against the government in 1970 have long been shrouded in mystery and official secrecy in Japan - as Paul Schrader discovered during the making of "Mishima: a life in Four Chapters". This taboo is finally shattered with Beautiful Mystery, a film which only escaped censorship due to its underground status. Beautiful Mystery irreverently parodies the Mishima story, with the charismatic figure of Mitani Makio representing the legendary Shield Society leader in the final week of his life. Young student, Shinohara is fascinated by Makio's private army as they work out in a local gym. Filled with patriotic fervour, he decides to enlist. However, he soon discovers that after long hours of gruelling military training, the soldiers like nothing better than indulging in bed hopping and orgies. Makio eventually decides that the time has come for a coup d'etat, a coup that he and his men realise is doomed to certain failure. (...)