Brilliant and touching

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

If I wanted to go to a rock concert I would do that rather than go to the movies. The music was not that good and even the best song was easily forgettable. Although there was some semblance of a plot it was not very interesting and hardly a revelation. In my view there is little to recommend this show to anyone. In the theater they had the speakers turned up so loud that I definitely felt that I could have been at a rock concert if I closed my eyes. Since the music was not really that good having it played very loud did not improve the experience. Perhaps I may have enjoyed this more if I was in my twenties or thirties and rock was young but it is not something that a sixty year old is likely to be interested in seeing.

Started as an off-Broadway rock musical, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH has exerted itself to be a cultural phenomenon, a trailblazer fighting for the recognition of LGBT minorities, and its film adaption comes in 2001, 15 years ago, directed, written and starred by John Cameron Mitchell, the fountainhead of the story and musical, is it on its way to become a latter-day THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) with its ever-growing cult followers? Chances are roseate.On the surface the film is comprised of a concatenation of Hedwig (Mitchell) and his bands' live performances in different places, intersected with flashbacks of Hedwig's past from Eastern Germany to Junction City, Kansas, the most startling one is his botched sex-change operation which left her the angry inch, a glaring aide-memoire of her bio-nature and the hell she has been undergone, also a testing ground to sift out those who cannot completely accept who she is, including Tom Speck (Pitt), a scare-easy greenhorn, whom Hedwig gets intimate with, but soon he would rip off her music for his own benefit.Among all the raucous numbers in their repertoire, TEAR ME DOWN is a stunning gambit, SUGAR DADDY goes deliciously risqué and provocative, ANGRY INCH is self-revealing and poignant, but, the true knockout is no doubt THE ORIGIN OF LOVE, sagacious for its philosophical kernel inspired from Plato's SYMPOSIUM, enthralling for the befitting animation sequences and maximally manifests Hedwig and the Angry Inch's Glam Rock appeal and their full-fledged glitz. The following internecine schism between Hedwig and her band members, namely, with Yitzhak (Shor, audaciously disguising herself as a man), is the typical eruption of her prima donna vagaries, discloses a more sinister side of Hedwig's personae.The film sends viewers a mixed message in the final curtain call, where Hedwig performs in her male form, without those gaudy headgear and fake boobs, leaves his mantle to Yitzhak, then in a dreamlike scenery, he reunites with Tom, both naked above the waist, teary-eyed. Be a woman if you want Hedwig, don't cringe, you are finally getting your toehold in the freedom land where one can be whoever he or she wants to be! Nevertheless, the coda seems to telegraph Hedwig's acquiescence of her biological identity, is she finally giving up the fight and finding peace with herself? Hardly so, in reality, it is a lifelong crusade ahead, that's rather in the wrong side of lane if the film and the story aim to be an affirming piece of art to endorse diversity and equality.Last but not the least, a salvo of shout-outs to John Cameron Mitchell, a daredevil triple-threat who endeavours to bring his labour-of-love into fruition and leaves a glamorous mark in the soil of US queer cinema.

I thought the music in this film was not bad-maybe a bit 'draggy' at times (pardon the pun)- but as the film draws to an end the true nature-the true not Transgender nature of the person playing the lead comes out. Ooops. I was hoping it would actually have been a Transgender person-but rather it was an actor playing a Transgender person-albeit effectively-but in this day an age if you want to represent an Asian person in a movie for example you don't use facial prosthetics on a Caucasian actor's eyes-you hire an Asian actor. David Bowie's involvement in the play this movie was based on makes it noteworthy in the minds of fans of David Bowie. There is Bowiesque music in it but I am hearing more Lou Reed aka CBGB's NYC punk circa 1970-which isn't bad-but again-it isn't actually rock tunes written by a Transgender musician. In a way I think this film defines the worst kind of scam-in another way its just good harmless fun. A drag queen called Jinx Monsoon or something close to that seemed to have been the only person with an 'alternate sexuality' involved with this play at any level at any venue & it has played at a few. One of the musicians in the band appeared to be a 'drag king' but other than that there was nobody else 'different.' I wondered if it was based on someone real but if it was that was never mentioned-or I missed it. Cute film-but it was what it was, so I just gave it a five. Some of the dialogue was...thoughtful-but it didn't come from a ...you get the picture.

I can't believe that this movie is so little known.Not only has it got pinches of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Tommy", it also plays in the same league as the above. Storywise AND music-wise that is.I saw it at a friend's house just recently and could not believe that I never had heard of it before. When I further discovered, that I was humming "The Origin of Love" the whole next day without even noticing, I ordered the DVD and Soundtrack right away. Since it's a 2001-movie, I got both at a very reasonable price. Can't wait until they arrive and I can see it again in Dolby Surround.It's original, it's witty, the songs are great, why don't you check it out right away? You won't be disappointed!I'd give it a well-earned 10, but I have to deduct 1 for John Cameron Mitchell's unshaved armpits ... an absolute no-go for a "girl".