Gender-bending comedy certainly exists in Japanese films, though it may not be mainstream. In Yosuke Fujita’s “Fuku-chan of FukuFuku Flats” (“Fukufukuso no Fukuchan,” 2014), popular female TV comedian Miyuki Oshima starred as a male house painter who becomes allergic to the opposite sex after being jilted by the girl of his dreams. She played the hero, quite convincingly, as a shy, ordinary guy.
Based on a novel by Maiko Seo, Masahide Ichii’s “Our Meal for Tomorrow” is another offbeat romantic drama that also audaciously bends gender roles, but in the personalities of its two principals, not in its casting. (The English title that makes it sound like a foodie movie is a direct translation from the Japanese.)
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