Village of Dreams

Co-scripted by Takehiro Nakajima, the director of Okoge, this magic-realist evocation of a rural childhood is chiefly interesting for its undercurrent of homosexual panic: twin boys are warned that the thunder god will steal their penises if they go naked and imagine being smothered by their gruff landlord's animated fundoshi loincloth. Elsewhere, the film rehearses the standard Freudian reading of the approach to puberty: ground already well-covered by Hou Xiaoxian in A Summer at Grandpa's. Amusing and skilfully executed, but nothing new.