This Is I

The Rhythm of Reinvention

I've never been much of a pushover for musical biopics. They usually follow a predictable rhythm: trauma, triumph, a montage set to a pop song, and a glossy finale. (You know the drill.) But Yusaku Matsumoto’s *This Is I* disrupts that familiar cadence in ways I didn't expect. Matsumoto is a director I typically associate with heavy, grim procedurals like *Winny* or *Noise*. Seeing him tackle the neon-drenched, Showa-pop reality of Japanese transgender icon Ai Haruna feels like watching a brutalist architect suddenly decide to build a roller coaster. Yet, it works. He doesn't just point a camera at Haruna’s life; he uses the artifice of the idol stage to crack open the pretty real, very terrifying process of becoming yourself in a society that would rather you simply didn't.



At the center of this neon storm is Haruki Mochizuki, an 18-year-old newcomer who plays the protagonist's transformation into Ai with an agonizingly specific physicality. Watch Mochizuki’s shoulders in the first act. They're permanently hiked up around his ears, a defensive posture against a world of schoolyard bullies and family confusion. The tension only begins to melt away in the sterile, fluorescent-lit office of Dr. Koji Wada. Played by Takumi Saitoh—an actor who usually brings a brooding, experimental edge to his roles—Dr. Wada is the quiet anchor of the film. Saitoh strips away the typical cinematic clichés of the crusading physician. He just looks tired. He carries his ostracization from the mid-90s Japanese medical establishment in the heavy bags under his eyes and his slow, deliberate gait. When Wada agrees to perform the taboo gender-affirming surgery, it'sn't framed as a grand ideological stand. It's just two outcasts recognizing each other across a desk.

What gets me is how Matsumoto treats the musical sequences. They'ren't just fantasy interludes. They're survival mechanisms. When the cruelty of 1990s Osaka becomes too much, the film shatters its own realism and erupts into heavily choreographed J-pop numbers. The lighting shifts from gritty streetlamp amber to saturated magenta and cyan. It's a visual representation of the psychological vocabulary Ai is trying to build for herself. She literally has to sing her identity into existence before she can live it.



There's one scene I keep replaying in my head. Ai, having finally begun her transition, steps out into the city wearing a red dress for the first time. The camera drops low, tracking her heels as they strike the pavement in time with a pulsating Heisei-era pop beat. It's a profoundly vulnerable moment disguised as a triumphant strut. The streetlights reflect off the wet asphalt, creating a runway out of an ordinary crosswalk. Over at *UK Film Review*, a critic rightly called this sequence "pure cinematic bliss," but I'd argue it's also laced with a terrifying fragility. You see her chin jut out, daring the world to look, while her hands nervously smooth down the fabric of her skirt. The courage isn't in the dress. It's in the trembling hands that chose to wear it.

The script is smart enough to avoid painting Ai's family in broad strokes. Seiji Chihara plays her rough, womanizing father not as an absolute tyrant, but as a surprisingly early, albeit messy, source of acceptance. It's a jagged dynamic. Meanwhile, Tae Kimura plays her mother with a rigid, painful confusion. She loves her child but can't reconcile the boy she raised with the woman standing in front of her. Their scenes together are excruciating because nobody is screaming. It’s just the quiet, devastating sound of people missing each other in the exact same room.



Not everything lands perfectly. The second act sags a bit when the dialogue shifts from personal ache to broad social messaging. I don't need characters to explicitly state the themes when the camera is already doing the heavy lifting. Still, *This Is I* manages to locate a rare kind of joy. It understands that finding your true self isn't a single, magical epiphany. It’s a series of difficult, mundane, and terrifying choices, punctuated by moments of desperate grace. Walking away from the screen, I didn't feel like I had just watched a biography. I felt like I had witnessed an escape act.