Similar to the way that people collect coins or playing cards, the Japanese love to collect beetles of all different shapes and sizes. Some are quite ornate and lovely to look at it but I find it hard not to think that every beetle in the country has to have been captured to meet the high demand.

As anecdotal, reductive, and repetitive a documentary that "Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo" sometimes is(although you have to love that title), at the same time, there is a fine sentiment buried here about respecting nature, using Japan's blend of Shinto and Buddhist philosophy as a model. According to the documentary, this is why insects(even the creepiest and ickiest of them) are so widely accepted there. So much so, that the songs of crickets are enormously popular and an entrepreneur buys a Ferrari solely from the profits from capturing beetles for stores. Except it does not tell the whole story and is a prime example why bringing up the idea of national identity is to say the least, wrong. If you don't believe me, check out "The Cove" about how some Japanese fishermen have a total lack of respect for nature. So which picture is right? Both? Neither? Just remember that this is a complex world we live in.

A doc that focuses on japans onsession with insects, here we get a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people fasination with insects as pets to the industry itself and the people whom make money catching these creatures, its all loosely told more visual than hard facts. it comes off great at times. seeiong the industry created through this is fun to see. and the doc overall shows a japan of today while delving into its past to compare. a interesting doc that certainly wont be for everyone,m and a cover and tile is no monster movie.

I'm really impressed by what Jessica Oreck has produced, it is a bit slow for a lot of folks, but I think it one of the most impressive documentary films, especial nature documentary, made this millennium! I can't wait to see what else she creates and believe that she will push the very medium of documentary to knew expanses! As an aspiring nature documentary filmmaker she is my main inspiration when creating my short films.

Who would have thought it, The Japanese love insects. They love them long time.

much deeper and complex than i expected...beautifully shot...more about the complex and religious relationship between japanese culture, buddhism and the insect than actual beetle fighting (which for some reason i thought it was about)...the moments showing the pride and joy of japanese children interacting with their pets and prized possessions and the visual celebration of the 'ideology" of the insect in buddhist teachings was the most fascinating for me...

A 90 minute docu-poem that was an Interesting blend of art film and documentary about a fascinating subject. Cool soundtrack.

Charming, amusing and informative documentary about Japan's obsessive fascination with all types of insects. After watching a group of small children gleefully playing with their fist-sized beetles, you'll be more then happy when your kid asks for a hamster or goldfish. I finally get the whole "Mothra" thing.

Contrary to its B-Movie title, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is actually an engaging documentary about Japanâ(TM)s fascination with all things insect. Juxtaposing images of beetle hunters, cricket keepers, entomologists, insect markets and adorable squealing children who keep pets of the squirmy variety, Director Jessica Orek draws us into a culture where every living creature â" even the tiniest one â" is equally important. I admit: some of the larvae close-ups gave me the wigs (donâ(TM)t even get me started on the Ferrari-driving dude who supplements his sake with WASPS! And then drinks! IT!), but thereâ(TM)s also plenty of beauty to look at: dragonfly wings, fluttering butterflies, and crickets chirping happily. I enjoyed it, even if it didnâ(TM)t exactly convince me that I need to keep anything other than furry, four-legged creatures in my house.

The first great art-film of the year comes disguised as a documentary. Japan's insect-reverent culture is the topic at hand. I told a friend I was going to see a film about the Japanese and their love of bugs, and he said, "Oh." I am telling you, this is a killer documentary. I believe the word I used right after the screening was, "Sensuous." Completely uninhibited and willing to take risks, by all practical accounts the film shouldn't work. The fact that it does is a testament to the filmmakers' obvious love of the form and a willingness in general to be completely sold out to the topic. We not only get to study the fascinating bugs of Japan, which are larger and more beautiful than any bug I've ever seen, but we study the people, too, and their fascination with the little critters. They marvel at these insects for their vitality, for the sounds they make, and for the way they teach in nature. The fascination is rooted in the 6th century in early Shinto and now Buddhist philosophy. These beautiful beetles, fireflies and crickets are a part of animist nature. According to Japanese beliefs, where the natural and the spiritual are more closely related, the universe is alive and breathing, and willing to teach -- as long as we're willing to listen. They give us insight even into ourselves. A soft-sounding feminine narrator explains how the firefly is the signature of burning love; how the dragonfly is a symbol of warrior power; how the sound of crickets is the song of night life; how a rhinoceros beetle resembles lightning from the horns on his head, he's a guardian of power or prestige. But if it's about honor for the insects, it's also about honor for the creation of film. The whole movie is like a love story created for the eyes -- my heart was pounding with every frame. There are images here that are soaked in miniscule beauty -- like haiku, the small poetry that was invented for the insect microverse. But then we're taken out of the insect world on a journey that shows the Tokyo crowds, Japanese children at play, the history and tradition of the religion, and the ebb and flow of their cities -- the pulse and grind of daily life. We see what the people in the streets of Tokyo might look like from a dragonfly's point of view, and then we're back on a leaf, or in a spotlight, or in a pet Beetle's cage, back with that wonderful feminine voice that narrates more philosophical musings. It is a poetic film that keeps our eyes fixed on the screen in excitement over nature. I almost lept to my feet in applause several times only a few minutes in. 80s retro synth-pop pokes in at various points, the electro-bop heightening the fun of the experience. It drifts between this and Thom Yorke-type electronica. The two styles blend in and out of each other, giving breaks between narration which make you light up like a firefly at the wondrous sound and imagery.

From Mothra to the forthcoming Insect Detective Yoshimi Yoshida, Japan’s unique fascination with insects has been diversely reflected by cinema for decades. Despite to the intimations of what proves to be its ironic title (all that’s absent is an exclamation point), Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is not a new addition to the nation’s durable canon of rampaging monster movies. Rather, it’s an attempt to resolve this collective bug love – which remains as pervasive today as ever – with the philosophical mores on which Japanese culture was founded. Charting the evolution of a national ontology through a people’s shared obsession with insects is certainly a singular proposition, particularly when closing focus on such a people-dense capital as Tokyo, whose towering highrises suggest human honeycombs and whose citizens, when viewed from a moth’s-eye vantage, seem to navigate the city’s teeming urban channels like drone ants. It’s a shame, then, that American documentarian Jessica Oreck – an animal keeper at New York’s American Museum of Natural History – struggles to maintain both audience interest and a cogent thesis throughout her feature debut. Thanks to the inherent otherworldliness of the bugs themselves (a miscellany ranging from stag beetles and moon moths to hornets and silkworms appear); some stylish, trance-like transitional interludes; and a quirky score which appropriately shrills with synthesised chirrups, Beetle Queen might move to the pleasing rhythms of a J-pop daydream, but its slender poetry is achieved at the expense of insight. A breathy, Japanese-language voice over exhaustively explicates the historical origins of Japan’s infatuation with all things six-legged. We learn of the notion of mono no aware – which approximates “a sympathy to transience” – and hear haiku after haiku after haiku after haiku authored in honour of a venerable, minimalist Japan that “rejoices in the miniscule.” (Hence the traditions of bonsai, zen gardens and yes, haiku, which downscale the unfathomably great so as to permit human contemplation). An affinity with the ephemeral and an ennobling of the Lilliputian, it seems, have informed the Japanese consciousness for centuries. With this context, a collective enchantment with insects is easy to understand. It’s all interesting enough, but glaringly ignored is the more pertinent issue of how this once deferential relationship has of late been perverted by the rising westernisation of Japanese culture. While the Emperors of old once commissioned versical tributes to noble dragonflies and were then happy to leave nature to its course, Beetle Queen reveals – seemingly by accident – a modern industry of insect enthusiasts apathetic to the ecological implications of their pastime. We’re shown bustling beetle bazaars, meet profiteering bug hunters (“Bugs paid for this Ferrari,” boasts one) and visit specialty dealerships dedicated to the vending of rare and exotic specimens. All the while, the narration insists the enthusiasm remains age-old and respectful, but Oreck’s footage betrays a contradictory actuality: gone is the spiritual affiliation with insects so stubbornly averred by the filmmaker and fêted those bygone poets; in its place is an obsession as plainly commercial as Pokémon. There’s a compelling parallel to drawn between the commodification of insect interest and Tokyo’s latter-last-century emergence as one of the world’s most rampantly consumerist metropolises, but that’s perhaps fodder for a cannier film. Oreck declines scrutinising her two-legged subjects too closely, and instead contents in parading cute cultural curios and nostalgia-cocooned antiquity. Her Beetle Queen tests the patience for this, but at least its director seems so at bliss, off, as she is, with the fireflies.

Artistically this film works on all levels, information wise is another story. The film is about how the Japanese culture is obsessed with insects, but the Doc. never dives into why. I went into this film expecting those questions to be answered, but instead it is full of beautiful imagery and transience music. I loved that part about this film, but I was expecting something else. It would have been nice to get some information, but as long as you know what you going into you should enjoy yourself.

a fascinating topic of which i knew absolutely nothing about prior to seeing this film - an anthropological look at japanese infatuation with insects. beautifully shot and interestingly scored, this is one of the most meditative and serene documentaries i've ever seen. and the stream of consciousness editing style is plain old cool. enlightening, joyful, and deeply scratching at the wanderlust itch. man, i gotta hit japan pronto.

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Extrano documental que mezcla la fascinacion de los japoneses con los insectos, y su cultura milenaria. Fallido, inconexo, demasiado desestructurado. Despierta realmente poco interes.