‘Natchan's Little Secret': Outdated comedy runs out of gas

Japanese films with LGBTQ protagonists used to be rare; now they’re becoming relatively common. Also, new movies like Kasho Iizuka’s “Angry Son” and Daishi Matsunaga’s “Egoist” may feature straight actors in gay roles but shy away from stereotypes.

So with its trio of unabashedly cartoonish drag queens at the center of the action, Yasujiro Tanaka’s heartwarming comedy “Natchan's Little Secret” feels like a throwback. I was half expecting a holographic Robin Williams as his comically flamboyant character from “The Birdcage” (1996) to pop up for a cameo.

Even so, drag queens are no stranger to Japanese screens: It was announced in November that the American reality competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” now in its 15th season, will launch a spinoff in Japan, and cross-dressing talents like Akihiro Miwa and Matsuko Deluxe have long been fixtures on network television here.

In the film, scripted by Tanaka, the three protagonists live it up as drag queens in certain settings such as clubs in Shinjuku Ni-chome, Tokyo’s gay district, but feel obliged to mask their true identities in their dealings with straight society — as well as, in some ways, with each other. It’s a sad state of affairs but one that is still true for many in Japan’s conservative society.

So when Ni-chome bar proprietor and drag queen “Nat-chan” suddenly dies, her three closest friends — “Virgin” (Kenichi Takitoh), “Moririn” (Shu Watanabe) and “Zubuko” (Tomoya Maeno) — rush to the hospital where her body lies. Once there, they’re confronted by an inquisitive mortician and realize they know next to nothing about their beloved friend beyond, as Virgin puts it, her fetishes and taste in men.

After some investigating, they conveniently manage to find her apartment and sneak in, just as Nat-chan’s mother (Chieko Matsubara) shows up with a key and enters. Posing as Nat-chan’s roommates, they awkwardly fend off questions from this sweet and seemingly oblivious woman and are flummoxed when she invites them to attend her son’s funeral in Gujo Hachiman, his hometown in Gifu Prefecture.

Shall they go and risk revealing Nat-chan’s secret life to her conservative relations, Mom included? Since the film is advertised as a road movie, I am giving nothing away by saying that their answer, decided upon after much agonizing, is “yes.”

There’s not much in the way of a plot, though the long drive to Gifu is packed with comic bits and characters, from the gushing female fans who mob popular TV talent Zubuko at a highway rest stop even though she is wearing male garb, to the handsome supermarket checkout clerk (Kaoru Nagata of the pop group Magic Prince) who sets Moririn’s heart aflutter.

The film is sympathetic to the difficulties its trio experiences in navigating rigid social codes, such as proper funeral dress and behavior in the provinces. It also shows Nat-chan’s hometown in a positive light, with the locals being more welcoming than the protagonists were expecting. (That’s not surprising, given that this portion of the film is like a tourist promotion video for Gujo Hachiman.)

Still, the film’s comedy and its leads’ over-the-top performances are cringingly reminiscent of male comedians in drag clowning on old-school TV shows. Watching it, I felt as though I were slipping back into the era of hit 1960s series “Ijiwaru Baasan” (“Mean Granny”), though, while playing the elderly lead, Yukio Aoshima (who went on to become the governor of Tokyo) evinced a more restrained sense of dress. Nostalgic? Maybe, for some. But thankfully, much of the world has moved on.