Cleopatra (1970 film)

Lore & Background

The film follows three humans from the far future—Jirō Tani, Hal Witcher, and Maria Fellow—who discover an alien race called the Pasateli planning to conquer humankind with the 'Cleopatra Plan'. Using a time machine, they transport their minds into members of Cleopatra's court. Hal vows to become the greatest lover in history by having sex with Cleopatra. The plot intertwines with the Roman conquest of Egypt, Cleopatra's seduction of Julius Caesar, and her eventual suicide by asp venom. The time travelers return to the future and reveal the Pasateli scheme to assume the form of beautiful women to seduce and destroy male leaders, allowing Earth to save itself. A manga adaptation was drawn solely by Osamu Tezuka.

Reader's Guide

Cleopatra (1970) is notable as the second installment of Mushi Production's adult-oriented Animerama trilogy, a pioneering attempt at adult animation in Japan. Despite its ambitious blend of science fiction, historical fantasy, and eroticism, the film was a critical and commercial failure in both Japan and the United States. In the US, distributor Xanadu Productions retitled it Cleopatra: Queen of Sex and gave it a self-applied X-rating, advertising it as the first X-rated animated film in America—though Fritz the Cat (released April 18, 1972) preceded it with an MPAA X-rating. The film's misleading pornographic advertising led to audience refunds. Critics gave mixed reviews: Howard Thompson of The New York Times noted its 'voluptuously drawn Cleopatra' and 'lavish backgrounds', while Variety called it 'partly sophomoric' but praised its animation and color. The film was not submitted to the MPAA. It has seen home video releases in Japan on VHS, VHD, Laserdisc, and DVD, and was released on Blu-ray by Third Window Films in 2018 and Discotek Media in 2020.

Did You Know?

• The film is the second part of Mushi Production's adult-oriented Animerama trilogy, following A Thousand and One Nights (1969) and preceding Belladonna of Sadness (1973).
• In the United States, Xanadu Productions retitled the film Cleopatra: Queen of Sex and gave it a self-applied X-rating, advertising it as the first X-rated animated film, though Fritz the Cat preceded it by six days.
• A manga adaptation of the film, also from Tezuka and Hisashi Sakaguchi, was released in October 1970 exclusively in COM and reprinted in late 2018.
• The film was not a success at the box office in America due to false advertising claiming it was pornographic, leading to audience refunds.

The Animerama Trilogy Context

Cleopatra occupies the middle position in Mushi Production's ambitious Animerama trilogy, a series of adult-oriented animated fantasy films that pushed the boundaries of what Japanese animation could explore for mature audiences. Directed by the legendary Osamu Tezuka alongside Eiichi Yamamoto, the 1970 film sits between A Thousand and One Nights (1969) and Belladonna of Sadness (1973), forming a triptych that treated animation as a medium capable of handling sexuality, political intrigue, and mythological spectacle without the constraints typically imposed on family-oriented television. The Japanese title, Kureopatora, reflects the film's grandiose ambitions, and its classification as an adult anime fantasy signals a deliberate departure from the studio's more familiar children's programming. Though the trilogy as a whole would later be recognized as a landmark in animation history, Cleopatra itself struggled to find an audience during its initial theatrical run, both in Japan and abroad, a fact that would shape its long and complicated path toward wider recognition.

The Cleopatra Plan and Time-Travel Narrative

The film's central conceit blends science fiction with historical drama: three future humans—Jirō Tani, Hal Witcher, and Maria Fellow—learn that an alien species called the Pasateli is executing the "Cleopatra Plan," a strategy to assume the appearance of beautiful women and seduce Earth's most powerful male leaders into destruction. To stop this, the trio sends their consciousnesses back into the bodies of figures in Cleopatra's court. The assignment, however, goes awry. Maria inhabits the handmaiden Libya, Jirō becomes Ionius, a Greek slave who liberates fellow captives using future-era grenades, and Hal is trapped inside a leopard named Rupa, completely ruining his personal goal of seducing the queen and claiming eternal fame as history's greatest lover. The narrative then threads through the Roman conquest of Egypt, Caesar's seduction and eventual assassination by senators, Cleopatra's failed attempt to charm the homosexual Octavian, her affair with Marcus Antonius, the Battle of Actium, and ultimately Cleopatra's suicide by asp. Upon returning to the future, the team reports the Pasateli threat just in time for humanity to root out the aliens and survive.

The American Release and the X-Rating Controversy

By 1972, Mushi Production was close to financial collapse, and the studio accepted a deal with Xanadu Productions Inc., a small independent distributor, to bring a subtitled version of Cleopatra to American screens. Xanadu rebranded the film as Cleopatra: Queen of Sex and slapped on a self-applied X-rating, opening it at the Bijou theatre on April 24. The marketing positioned it as the first X-rated animated feature in the United States, a claim that fell apart almost immediately when Fritz the Cat received its MPAA X-rating just six days earlier, on April 18. The film was never actually submitted to the MPAA for classification. Audiences who walked in expecting explicit pornography were instead met with a stylized historical fantasy, and the resulting mismatch triggered a wave of refund requests that devastated the box office. The film had already underperformed in its native Japan, and the American disaster compounded the studio's financial troubles. The episode became a cautionary tale about false advertising in the exploitation-film era.

Critical Reception and Home Video Afterlife

Reviews of Cleopatra have been notably split. Howard Thompson of The New York Times acknowledged the film's visual richness, singling out its lavish backgrounds and striking use of color, while describing the narrative as largely revolving around a voluptuously drawn Cleopatra surrounded by bare-breasted attendants. Variety's assessment was similarly mixed, calling the story "partly sophomoric" with an emphasis on vulgar low comedy, yet conceding that the animation quality and color palette were genuinely impressive. A manga adaptation, written by Tezuka and Hisashi Sakaguchi, appeared in the COM magazine in October 1970 and saw a reprint in late 2018. In terms of home video, the film enjoyed a long run across formats—VHS, VHD, Laserdisc, and DVD—sometimes bundled with its trilogy siblings and sometimes sold standalone. A significant milestone came on June 18, 2018, when Third Window Films issued the first Blu-ray release, paired with A Thousand and One Nights for Region B and Region 2 markets. Discotek Media followed with a Region A Blu-ray on October 27, 2020, ensuring the film remained accessible to new generations of animation enthusiasts.