Cleopatra 720p Cleopatra: Queen of Sex - (1970 Lang: Japanese, Sub:Eng)

A bizarre yet brilliant tragedy - Guy's Peellaert "Les Aventures de Jodelle" gets a movie adaptation...

Osamu Tezuka's vision of Cleopatra might be one of the most under-rated movies in the history of Japanese animation. Maybe it's because the movie is very old or maybe because it was promoted as a sex-cartoon outside of Japan. But people are missing a really wonderful gem here.

In one scene there is nothing-is-holy slapstick, nonsense and experimental FX and the next one is dead serious again. But it might be this very bizarre mixture of humor and drama that make this movie so emotional and unforgettable.

On the technical side the movie is very well done. The animation are fluid and even though they can't compare with later productions they are very good for their time. The musical score doesn't have a wide variety of styles but it always suits the scene and the wonderful main theme certainly ensures that tears will be shed at the end.

I can't highly enough recommend this movie even if it might not be everybody's cup of tea.

In the far future, three humans—Jiro, Harvey, and Mary—discover that an alien race called the Pasateli intends to conquer humankind by the mysterious "Cleopatra plan". Through the use of a time machine, the three transport their minds into the bodies of members of the historical Cleopatra's court to discover and stop the plan. Harvey, however, vows to use the opportunity to secure the title of the greatest lover who ever lived by having sex with Cleopatra.

In the middle of the Roman conquest of Egypt, a group of Egyptians secretly plot a rebellion to overthrow Julius Caesar. The group plans to send Cleopatra to first seduce and then murder Caesar. The Romans discover the group and attack them. Cleopatra escapes, along with her handmaidens Lybia and Apollodoria. Cleopatra goes to an ancient wizard, who magically grants her an irresistibly seductive body for her mission.

It is at this point that the Jiro, Harvey, and Mary arrive: Mary is now Lybia, and Harvey finds himself in the body of the wizard's pet leopard Rupa, thwarting his plans to seduce Cleopatra. They accompany Cleopatra to meet Caesar, who is so overcome by her beauty that he makes her queen of Egypt. Jiro finds himself in the body of Ionius, a Greek man captured and enslaved by the Romans. Ionius frees himself and the other slaves by using his knowledge of future technology to make modern hand grenades. Caesar recaptures Ionius and, amused by his fighting skills, orders him to fight in the gladiatorial arena. He gives Ionius a gun to ensure his victory. Ionius proves so popular with the Roman public that Caesar's own popularity soars, leading his senators to conspire to murder both him and Ionis and end their influence.

Lybia and Apollodoria insist that Cleopatra must murder Caesar; Cleopatra, however, has had a change of heart and keeps putting off the assassination in favor of sex. They accompany Caesar back to Rome, just in time for him to be assassinated by his own senators. Octavian—soon to be called Augustus Caesar—takes command. Cleopatra tries to continue the plan by seducing Augustus, only to find that he is homosexual and impervious to her charms. Augustus, however, is attracted to Ionius and spares his life. Disappointed by the rejection, Cleopatra commits suicide.

The time travelers return to the future and report that the Cleopatra plan is a scheme by the Pasateli to assume the form of beautiful human women to seduce and destroy Earth's most powerful male leaders. The Pasateli have already taken their human forms and are poised to strike when this information arrives, but Earth is able to root them out and save the world in time.

This movie is 100% aesthetic. although it's not even close to its sequence, Belladonna of Sadness (1973), i simply loved it so much, and honestly i've never watched something like this. if you're a fan of the Japanese culture + trash films, i can't recommend it enough. basically, a group of time travellers go back to the Cleopatra era in order to investigate the plans of a rival planet. there, the young Cleopatra is being turned into a sex machine in order to stop the nymphomaniac dictator Caesar.

As for the plot: female objetification at its best (literally - at some point, one of the female characters is packed up and delivered at a maniac's front door). by the way, the story itself doesn't make sense at all. for example, when Kureopatora and Apollodoria try to poison Caesar, the poison ends up healling him from several mental disorders - it seems like they wanted to include those elements but didn't know how to do so. the reason of the time travel also doesn't make sense at all. plus the audio is a bit screwed up (i'm pretty sure this is not an issue with the print i watched).

The movie deals with revolution, and works like a parody of classic history ("Et tu, Brute?"). it includes rape, zoophilia, incest, pedophilia and gay-bashing references. it has some unexpected moments, such as an Astro Boy appearance. for an underground/low budget animation, i must admit Kureopatora is pretty impressive. not only one of the very first X-Rated cartoons, it has definitely paved the way for Miyazaki (and everyone else). it is a rare movie and the subtitles are even rarer (it has never been released outside Japan, and even there the DVD release was very limited) so if you have the chance to watch it don't miss it...

Certainly has some superfluous things in this fabulous feature Japanese animation. The futuristic framework inside the narrative about Cleopatra goes on for example. The same could be said about the characters of the secondary plot, Lybia and her lover. Alas, in fact one is mainly support for the other – if those characters doesn't exist at all, there isn't need to secondary plot. Nothing this, nor the quality just reasonable of the animation properly, nothing much different of trivial TV product, take off the bright of this beautiful film. Probably influenced by the libertarian atmosphere of the time were produced, it use in the proper manner its idiosyncrasies, provoking a stunning effect, promoted mostly by its occasional appearance. The mainly example of this is the festival in tribute to Caesar, all made by references of art history. Or its intense, but usually not vulgar, sexuality. Like in the moment almost abstract that Caesar makes love with Cleopatra and we just see two mainly lines waving in an empty frame. Its eroticism, could even be accused of misogynistic, mainly in the humorous grotesque figure of Lupa, the pet Leopard of Cleopatra, but the women are far to be only victims.

At some point they just manipulate the fool men through the only value they usually consider in them: sex. Once more that is far to be the rule. Marcus Antonius is completely obsessed by Cleopatra and treats her in the more dignified way. Through all the film we receive creativity in the right doses in terms of narrative too. Although our heroes came from space, just in a unique moment, a modern object is put in foreground – the revolver that saves the life of the brave gladiator against a human-monster ten times more strong than him. In some moments what is stunning is the own situation, like the bold scene when Cleopatra finds Caesar with his own naked mother in the bed. One of the best effects that this bizarre (in a good sense) movie provokes is that it doesn't make any use of the common clichés of the time, like psychedelic images, to emulate its libertarian creativity. It is even more powerful and bizarre in its trivial animation style. Unfurtenately, its creative approach to sex was intentionally or not misunderstood when its abroad release, gaining the stupid title of "Cleopatra, Queen of Sex" - A truly gem of feature animation.