“This is the first feature by Toshio Matsumoto, a famous filmmaker of experimental and documentary shorts, and director-critic of the modern Japanese avant-garde theater. Funeral Parade of Roses is a brilliant, sensational depiction of the homosexual underworld of contemporary Tokyo, with its hero, Eddie, the central attraction of a ‘gay-bar,' the Genet. In addition to being the first Japanese film to deal with this aspect of society, it is also a modern parody of the Oedipus legend, one that ingeniously utilizes interviews with the performers in contrast to the dramatic movements of the story. A total aesthetic break with traditions is involved.... The fatalism of the story does not deter a spectator's amazement at the performances Matsumoto has been able to elicit from his non-professional cast, particularly the two leads. The actor, Peter, is a famous female impersonator in Tokyo, representing the emancipated, Westernized ‘woman,' while Osamu Ogasawara is noted for his impersonation of the traditional, kimonoed siren. In the film, they are the protagonists who, as love rivals, struggle to win the love of Gondo, manager of the Genet. Matsumoto himself steps into the film as interviewer, and Eddie's drama is continually seen against the current tide of social history in Tokyo: the hippie philosopher-rebels, the drug trade, student battles with police and the gayboys' undeclared war with Shinjuku prostitutes. The bitter satire is not without humor, especially when judo and fisticuffs replace daintiness in the gayboys' squabbles, or during their haughty entrance into a men's room, dressed as teenage refugees from the pages of Elle. But the denouement is inescapable: the boy-heroine falls from the height of insecure pride, and Matsumoto's subtle motion picture convinces us that Tiresias' warnings could possibly be heard in the night-town of unnatural Tokyo.” --S.F. Film Festival, 1970