Your Name must be the best body-swap movies ever made. It is a beautiful love story, and the kind of high quality anime we have normally seen from Studio Ghibli.
The two main characters switch bodies, but in a fashion that is much more complex that we see in most movies using this plot device.
The 2016 movie was made by Noritaka Kawaguchi and Genki Kawamura, and was a huge hit world wide. If you haven't seen it, do so now.
Deadline reports that J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: Episode IX) and Lindsey Weber will produce for Bad Robot, along with Genki Kawamura.
American adaptations of films from other countries are problematic. This applies to anime, as well. Ghost in the Shell was a fiasco. Still, I am looking forward to this one.
The body-swap theme seems to be popular among some directors these days.
Inside You is a brand new one, directed by a woman, Heather Fink, and is playing in some US theaters right now.
I haven't seen the movie yet. It is marketed as a romantic comedy, and the write-up goes like this:
Stephanie and Ryan have been dating for 5 years but their views on marriage couldn't be more different. After a botched marriage proposal and an encounter with a magical object, Stephanie and Ryan switch bodies. They navigate the wonders and challenges of the opposite sex while making unexpected discoveries about each other.
Heather Fink plays the role of the main female character herself. This is her first feature film.
It was important to me that the female character was not a stereotype of a woman and the male character was not a stereotype of a man. I think in real women, there are several contradictions when it comes to what being a woman is all about. So what is it really then when we switch bodies?
It is amazing to see how many male to female transformation movies follow the exact same plot:
1. Callous and sexist boss is transformed into a sexy woman
2. Sexy woman learns how it is to be a woman facing all this crap
3. And most often: Boss learns to live as a woman
Leo/Cleo is another one, from 1989, made by porn film director Chuck Vincent and with porn actress Veronica Heart in the leading role. In spite of some nudity, this is not a porn movie, however.
You could better categorise it as some kind of romantic action comedy. It is not good, but it is not bad either, and Veronica Heart actually knows how to act.
World of TG is a site mainly devoted to the erotic side of TG dreams, including captions, stories and movies. We use stories for entertainment and in order to understand what or who we are.
Movies has been used for this purpose for a long time, and Cheryl has done an excellent job covering older transgender oriented movies over at her site Lost in Transgender.
She writes about the backstory, the actors, the directors and the times the movies were made.
The movies can sometimes be hard to get hold of, but by doing some internet searches you will be able to find some of them.
She also uses the site to promote the Tranisa crossdressing and gender bender videos in between the historical articles.
Feminized has given us a short write-up om Ms. Mako's feature length movie, Paradox Alice.
Paradox Alice is a science fiction movie about a all male crew stranded in space after the Earth blows up.
This extreme situation forces nature to take desperate measures (or, at least, that is one of the explanations given) and one of the men is brutally transformed into a woman.
It is definitely a feminization fantasy of sorts, containing many of the elements found in TG captions and fiction. However, they become part of a much larger story about life, love, morals and religion.
This is not a film about a transgender woman! The makers of The Assignment insist. I would say they are right about that.
This is the story about a mad scientist (played by Sigourney Weaver) who kidnaps the notorious contract killer, Frank Kitchen, and uses hormones and surgery to turn him into a woman -- for revenge.
He suddenly wakes up one day, in a dirty hotel room, with breasts and a vagina.
But that does not make him a woman, mentally, and if Michelle Rodriguez does one thing right in this movie, it is that she presents the post-op Frank Kitchen as a guy, as the hit man he truly is.
You could say that there is one trans person in this movie. Sigourney Weaver plays the role of a transmasculine woman.
I think it works as a film noir B-movie. You caught up in the action and truly wonder how it all will end, and what kind of life Frank will have in his female body.
Whether it was also meant as a feminization fantasy, I do not know, but I know that many of the visitors to this site will watch it as such.
You will find more info on the movie and discussions over at Crossdream Life, where you will also find an interview with Walter Hill, the director of the movie, from the comic book version of the story.
Japanese culture may seem strict and uptight, and in many ways it is. Still, when it comes to entertainment they have a very relaxed attitude to gender bending. There is even a body swap porn genre.
In anime (Japanese style animated movies) quite a few plots are based on boy being changed into girl, and that applies also to non-erotic material. Well, maybe non-erotic is not exactly the word we are looking for. There are plenty of very curvy bodies in sexy school girl uniforms, even if there is no explicit sex.
Goodbye Charlie is a 1964 comedy film about a callous womanizer who gets his just reward. It was adapted from George Axelrod's play Goodbye, Charlie and starred Debbie Reynolds and Tony Curtis. The play also provided the basis for Switch, with Ellen Barkin and Jimmy Smits.
I would say that it is better than all the other movies mentioned above. I like the script and I like the comedy.
Needless to say, Charlie comes back as a woman after being murdered. A sexy vamp of a woman. And although Charlie takes to his new life a bit too quickly in my opinion, the drama that unfolds is worth watching.
GEORGE AXELROD'S play, "Goodbye, Charlie," was bad enough on the stage. On the screen, it is a bleak conglomeration of outrageous whimsies and stupidities. And it has Debbie Reynolds and Tony Curtis so sadly cast in distasteful roles that it causes even a hardened moviegoer to turn away from it in pain and shame.
Ouch!
You can watch it now, if you like, as the whole movie is available on YouTube.