“Funeral Parade of Roses” (薔薇の葬列), Ultra-Rare Original Japanese Video Release Poster 1988, Toshio Matsumoto / ATG, Paramount Video R18

This is an original Japanese promotional poster issued for the 1988 Paramount Video release of Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses. An internationally celebrated landmark of the Japanese New Wave and queer cinema, the film remains one of the most visually adventurous works to emerge from Japan’s late-1960s underground.

This ultra-rare video-release poster is exceptionally difficult to find, even in Japan. Its extraordinary combination of monumental portraiture, saturated colour, floral collage, butterflies, and tinted film stills captures the film’s mixture of glamour, psychological unease, and experimental freedom.

Film background

Originally released in Japan on 13 September 1969, Funeral Parade of Roses was written and directed by Toshio Matsumoto, and produced by Matsumoto Productions and the Art Theatre Guild of Japan (ATG).

Set within the bars, streets, and underground artistic circles of contemporary Tokyo, the film follows Eddie, a young hostess at Shinjuku’s Bar Genet, played by Peter, also known as Shinnosuke Ikehata. Eddie’s relationship with the bar’s owner, Gonda, brings her into conflict with its established hostess, Leda, setting in motion a story of desire, jealousy, and concealed family history.

Yoshio Tsuchiya, familiar from his performances in Akira Kurosawa’s films, plays Gonda, while Osamu Ogasawara appears as Leda. Peter’s performance gives the film its magnetic centre, combining confidence and irreverence with increasing vulnerability.

Loosely reworking Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Matsumoto interrupts the unfolding drama with interviews, documentary observation, experimental imagery, abrupt changes of pace, and moments that expose the filmmaking process itself. The result moves between intimate tragedy and a vivid record of Tokyo’s counterculture.

Its depiction of gender expression, nightlife, and lives rarely placed at the centre of contemporary cinema has made it an enduring cult classic and a major work in the history of queer filmmaking.

Toshio Matsumoto and ATG

Funeral Parade of Roses was Matsumoto’s first feature-length fiction film, following his pioneering work in documentary and experimental cinema.

Matsumoto approached film as a medium whose conventions could be continually questioned. His work explores the unstable relationship between observation and invention, using editing, repetition, sound, and fragmented imagery to challenge how an audience understands what it sees.

Here, those concerns become part of the storytelling: fiction repeatedly opens into documentary, while apparently spontaneous encounters become inseparable from performance. Tatsuo Suzuki’s black-and-white cinematography, Jōji Yuasa’s music, and Setsu Asakura’s art direction contribute to its distinctive visual and sonic character.

Founded in 1961, ATG — Art Theatre Guild initially specialised in distributing international art cinema before becoming a crucial supporter of independent Japanese production. Its modest budgets and commitment to artistic freedom enabled filmmakers to pursue subjects and forms that often sat outside mainstream studio expectations.

Its history encompasses major works by Nagisa Ōshima, Shūji Terayama, Kijū Yoshida, and Toshio Matsumoto, among others. ATG also encouraged an exceptional culture of film-poster design, bringing cinema into close dialogue with contemporary graphics, illustration, and the visual arts.

Funeral Parade of Roses embodies that convergence of independent cinema, underground performance, and artistic experimentation.

Poster design

The design is dominated by an enormous high-contrast monochrome portrait, its elaborate coiffure occupying much of the central field. Dramatic eye makeup, ornamental jewellery, and a small red star beside the eye create an image that is at once glamorous, theatrical, and unsettling.

Across the hair and surrounding darkness, roses and vividly coloured butterflies appear as decorative collage elements. Their delicate forms contrast with the coarse photographic texture and deep black background, giving the composition a surreal, almost dreamlike quality.

A continuous border of film stills surrounds the portrait. Individually tinted in hot pink, turquoise, orange, yellow, green, and violet, these panels create a dense sequence of faces, intimate encounters, and street scenes. Floral arrangements anchor the four corners.

At upper right, the Japanese title appears in bold yellow lettering against a red panel:

「薔薇の葬列」
“Funeral Parade of Roses”

Vertical columns of pink, red, yellow, and white text extend across the upper portion of the composition. The combination of densely arranged typography, decorative imagery, and photographic fragments gives the poster an intensity closely suited to the film’s restless construction.

The lower section carries the Paramount Video branding and the announcement:

「4月25日発売」
“Released April 25”

The accompanying PV-1027 catalogue number identifies the video edition being promoted. These printed details establish the poster’s place in the film’s later home-video history.

Cultural significance and rarity

Funeral Parade of Roses has retained its ability to surprise audiences across successive generations. Its international restoration and revival screenings have reinforced its standing as both a major experimental film and an essential portrait of Japanese queer counterculture.

This scarce promotional issue connects that 1960s artistic world with the Japanese video market of the late 1980s, when home viewing offered another route into films previously encountered through specialist cinemas and repertory screenings.

For collectors of ATG, Japanese underground cinema, queer film history, and adventurous graphic design, the poster offers a particularly compelling combination of subject, visual impact, and rarity.

Condition

Excellent+ / close to Near Mint. Exceptionally well preserved, with vivid colour, deep blacks, crisp printed detail, and outstanding overall presentation. The intricate border imagery and central portrait retain superb visual impact, with only very minor signs of handling. Once framed, this poster will display exceptionally well. Please review the photographs—they show the exact poster for sale.

This is an original Japanese promotional poster produced for the 1988 video release of Funeral Parade of Roses.
It is not a modern reproduction.

It is approximately 38 years old.

Certificate of Authenticity included.