ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Lollivan 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.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

James Hitchcock "Gohatto" is set in mid-19th century Japan, among the Shinsengumi, a samurai militia created to uphold law and order and to defend the shogunate against reformist forces which sought to restore power to the Emperor. The central character is Sozaburo Kano, a teenage recruit to the force. Sozaburo is a beautiful young man, whose effeminate appearance inspires sexual desire among his comrades.The film's title has been translated both as "Taboo" and "The Code", and refers to the strict code of discipline which prevailed among the samurai, severe violations of which could be punished by death. Despite the severity of the samurai code, however, homosexuality per se was not taboo, as it would have been in Western societies at this date. A British soldier of the Victorian era who had a sexual relationship with a comrade would have been liable to severe punishment and, at the very least, to dismissal from the Army in disgrace. In Japan, however, homosexual relationships among the samurai were tolerated. Sozaburo, however, poses problems for his superiors in that his quasi-feminine beauty leads to jealousies among the men and thereby endangers discipline. Although he is the central character, he is a passive one; the film is less about him than about the passions he unleashes, passions to which Sozaburo himself seems largely indifferent.As a drama, "Gohatto" is not particularly interesting; my interest was held much more by its aesthetic aspects. To a Western audience, the film will seem strange and exotic, but its strangeness does not lie in flamboyance or showiness; indeed, I suspect that a Western film celebrating nineteenth-century gay life would be much more flamboyant in style. Rather, its strangeness lies in its austerity and restraint. The acting is deliberately stylised, almost ritualistic. The look of the film is also austere. It is set at the very end of what might be called the era of Old Japan. Although the 1850s and 1860s were the period when the Japanese were first starting to open their country up to the West, there is very little, if any, visual evidence of Western influence on show here. (Were the film to be set only a decade or two later, say around the time featured in "The Last Samurai", Western influences would have been much more visible).Director Nagisa Ōshima's palette is a very limited one; the black and white of the samurais' uniforms, together with browns and greys. Bright colours are used very sparingly. Most of the film is set indoors, in traditional plain, sparsely furnished Japanese interiors. The result is an aesthetic which is austere, yet strangely beautiful- and also very masculine. Only briefly in the scene set in a brothel, where we see brighter colours and richer decoration, do we see a more feminine aesthetic. "Gohatto" can perhaps be thought of as an "art film" in the most literal meaning of the term, the sort of film where every shot seems to have been composed like a picture, and a work of icy, formal beauty. 7/10

ekeby 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.

ace-150 This lovely film about a young man whose beauty eats other men's souls asks more questions than it answers. Yay! I've read so many reviews of this film that express dissatisfaction with its ethereal vagueness. But that's kinda the point. People in Japan in 1860, or today for that matter, don't generally see being gay as an identity, but as an action or series of actions. Expecting the characters to somehow come out of the closet is a peculiarly western demand. Ambiguity of morals, responsibility, blame, action are all pretty typical of Japanese cinema. Like pistachio ice cream, it's not the flavor for everyone. Other reviews complain that Matsuda Ryuhei's looks are more bizarre than beautiful. Once again, he looks Japanese. Zhang Ziyi in Memoirs of a Geisha is not what real Japanese people, let alone idealized 19th century ones, look like. This film really explores perversity. Not because of a bit of semi-graphic sodomy, but because almost everyone in the film loses their moral compass over a pretty face. What makes it titillatingly icky is the fact that Matsuda Ryuhei was only 15 when this was filmed.

coyo I adored it. I watched it four times in a row and I was squealing with happiness and bawling my eyes out at the end.I love the portrait of Sozaburo, or rather the LACK of portrait of him. Even though he's the main character he's only seen through other's eyes and you never know what he's thinking or planning.The other characters are bloody brilliant, too. I really feel sorry for Tashiro, the only character I really feel for throughout the movie. It's obvious from the start that he loves Sozaburo (there is a really cute scene where that is obvious but I'm not telling since that's a SPOILER). I also really enjoy how the generals are portrayed, the scenery, the symbolism (which a friend had to explain cause I didn't get it first time we watched it)...All in all, brilliant movie which everybody should see! Well, not people who have a problem with gay men, but everybody else should see it.