Ground breaking, the aptly-named Gohatto ("Taboo") tackles the issue of homosexuality in the armed forces. Set in feudal Japan in the 19th Centruy, the story centres around a militia group of Samurai, a professional and single-minded set of men who live together in their aim to serve their masters' wishes. Into this world enters Samurai Sozaburo Kanowho, a talented young trainee who causes ripples (!) through this once staid world. The young man is porcelain faced and has an androgynous look that stirs the Samurais repressed desires. One by one all the male adherent fall for his feminine charms, some openly flaunting their desire for him whilst others try to suppress it.Darkly humorous, this brilliantly by-steps all and any clichés over gay issues, and the audience is kept guessing over our lead man's aims. However, it's no comedy, and the acting and style is purely a period piece. As it's the old Samurai world, violence is unflinching whenever it occurs and testosterone is always at its peak in this world.The story itself is intriguing and fascinating, where the the samurais' reticence over their emotions (let alone homosexuality) is the main Taboo that is being toyed with here. However, there can be too many characters at points and it can get all a bit confusing. I felt the film ended a little too abruptly and could have padded out a bit longer, but it was still interesting. There is no real resolution to the story.Performances are excellent, especially from Beat Kitashi Takano as the "lieutenant" in the samurai stable, whilst the settings capture the beauty of the feudal Japanese world. Direction and camera work are also great.To my surprise, this is a film I very much enjoyed. It toys with the genres, and doesn't make you feel uncomfortable at any point. It mashes subtlety with humour and violence quite well, and most will enjoy. It's multi-character referencing on first viewing can make it difficult to follow, but given an opportunity most will be entertained by this wonderfully intelligent number.

I want to comment on the geisha scene--one that is less than a minute long. There is more power, mystery, eroticism, history, suspense--and a whole bunch of other adjectives--in that one brief scene than in the entire movie Memoirs of a Geisha. Or any other movie I've ever seen with a geisha.* It is absolutely hypnotic and something you will never forget. And that's just a tiny fraction of this movie. Same sex relationships figure in the plot, so I count this as one of my ten best gay films. But it is not a gay film in any other sense except that the desire and love is for the same sex. The dialog is literate and witty, the characters are multi-dimensional, and the story has many levels. It is a meditation on beauty, obsession, jealousy, order, and disorder. This movie is fascinating, mysterious, and exquisite. What else could you possibly want?*EDIT: I learned from the message boards that the character is actually a high-ranked courtesan, not a geisha. For devotees of Japanese culture, this distinction is important; for us regular people, not so much.

GOHATTO: TABOO Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS1865: A beautiful young male warrior (Ryohei Matsuda) causes jealousy and resentment amongst the members of a samurai garrison, leading to conflict and murder.Nagisa Oshima courted controversy with this unusual drama, which dares to foreground the homoerotic underpinnings of chanbara swordplay epics. Takeshi Kitano headlines proceedings as an experienced militia leader who fears Matsuda's influence on the men in his command, despite the boy's obvious fighting prowess. However, some viewers may be disconcerted by Matsuda's overtly feminised appearance, which makes him look odd rather than beautiful, undermining the film's entire premise. In fact, Matsuda is upstaged in this regard by actor/musician Shinji Takeda (PULSE), playing an equally beautiful fellow warrior whose smile and enthusiasm lights up the entire garrison, prompting a violent sequence of events during the narrative's latter stages. Though the film's 'gay' element is presented matter-of-factly, Oshima also highlights a measure of prejudice amongst Matsuda's fellow soldiers, with devastating consequences for many of the leading characters. Staged and photographed with formal grace (a typical chanbara conceit), Oshima's busy screenplay - co-written with Ryotaro Shiba, derived from fact-based literary works - moves swiftly from sex-drama to murder-mystery with lightning efficiency, and the climactic twist is genuinely surprising.(Japanese dialogue)

If you're going to make a samurai film, I propose that you should have either 1. an engaging plot with interesting characters or 2. lots of wicked-cool sword fights (or ideally, both). Gohatto has neither. What it does have is cool outfits, and lots of men looking at each other longingly (both of which would be fine, if it also had either of the two criteria listed above).After seeing this movie and `Collage of our Life' in one weekend, I'm starting to rethink by formerly high opinion of Ryuhei Matsuda. Though it could just be the lukewarm performance by everyone else make his trademark 'malaise' outright bland. Even Beat Takeshi, who I thought would be perfect as Hijikata, looked like he couldn't care less about what was going on. Just about the only character that has any personality is Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano), who disappears for about 2/3 of the film. Everyone else is either a flat caricature (Okita smiles a lot, Inoue is old and inept), or just plain flat. Most of the film could have been done with finger puppets to similar effect.The plot is just as one-dimensional. The whole story takes place during the Bakamatsu, one of the most interesting episodes in Japanese history. Does Oshima use this fascinating period as a poignant backdrop for his drama, or at the very least an excuse for overdone swordfights to disguise the lack of a plot? No, we get these guys sitting around, making contrived references that sound like they're dictating footnotes for a history textbook. Other than that, the bloody struggle to determine the future of Japan is totally irrelevant to the plot. It could have taken place at an open minded country club.There isn't so much plot development as 'stuff happens'. There a guy, and someone dies, and there's this other guy, then it snows, and they have dinner quote history texts, and pine over the pretty-boy. These haphazard events are tied together by such brilliant transitions as a black screen with the words `Meanwhile' `One month later' `patience is rewarded'. Wow, riveting stuff. Why is Kano-the-cute such an efficient killing machine? What does he have against women? How does that life threatening head wound heal without even a scab? Who knows? There was one moment near the end when I went 'Oh, that's kind of interesting,' and even that little twist wasn't a big surprise. I'd have no problem with a low key, psychological take on the Bakamatsu, or homoeroticism among the Samurai, if there was even one character in the whole movie I could have cared less about. And even the homosexuality is lukewarm ('Gee. I like the pretty-boy, gosh darn it'). On the other hand, the swordplay is beautiful (in a somewhat authentic way, not a Ryuhei 'Versus' Kitamura bloodfest way), as are the swords themselves (if you're into that kind of thing), but they're too few an far between to cover for the flimsy story. So there's really no reason to see this film at all, no matter what kind of movies you like. Unless you have a major interest in costuming and set design, or simply must see some samurai manlove.