TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

ljt236 I have seen this movie twice now. I thought I would give it another chance and, besides, I couldn't remember why I had given it such a poor rating.Visually and musically, there is much to like about this movie. The photography is beautifully lit and stunning throughout. The musical score is original and gorgeous.My issue is with the story, which, as a gay man, I found painful to sit through. The youngest samurai, Kano, is such a beauty that he is highly desired by his more experienced peers and teachers. If only his personality were as winning. His expression never changes, so it is impossible to guess where his head is at any given time. He is totally passive when making love and never seems to show any affection except when he spars with the man whom everyone suspects is his lover. Then, though clearly a better swordsman, Kano allows himself to be defeated, which only serves to cause the shogun master to believe that his suspicions were correct.This film does its best to refute the mythology that has sprung up--at least in the US--concerning the supposed acceptance of homosexuality within the samurai cult. Kano's alleged gayness only causes his peers to view him with suspicion, if not disdain. If not for his skill with the blade and willingness to use it, he would have no stature at all. The plot thickens when his alleged lovers begin turning up dead. Were they killed out of jealousy? Or was it something more sinister? I won't spoil it for you. I will just say that if you're looking for a beautifully-produced Japanese gay love story, you'd do well to keep looking. Taboo will leave you with a splitting headache (pun intended).

Giffykawaii I'm not good at writing English... But this movie is so good among those I have seen - - I mean the movie concerning homosexual love even Alexander! The reason why is that I feel uncomfortable whenever I see love scenes in Alexander but for Gohatto I don't. In the contrary I do respect how the producer portray the movie in such an aesthetic way. The sexual stuff is not so explicit that I believe those who are not interested in homosexual stuff can deal with. Most of all, I like the way that the director let us figure out the reason of the hard-to-understand behavior of the leading characters and even the end of the story. Firstly when I heard about Gohatto I found many people complained about not clearly understanding of the movie and I felt negative. Besides, after reading the movie review I thought it was an ordinary gay movie and I decided not to watch it. After many years that I had a chance to watch and I felt...wow...it's much better and deeper than I had thought. Now I have fallen in love and would like to recommend this movie to everyone. Watch it and you will realize that hardly you will ever find this sort of movie again. It's just beautiful and rare. Try once and you might feel like I feel. I vote 9/10.

Claudio Carvalho Ïn 1865, in Kyoto, in a period of fights among different clans, Sozaburo Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda) and Hyozo Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano) join a samurai legion to be trained as warriors. The beauty of the manipulative Kano sexually attracts the other men, including high ranking commanders, and he becomes lover of Tashiro."Gohatto" is a weird movie for westerns like me, who are not familiarized with Japanese culture. However, it is a beautiful movie, with a stunning music score and a wonderful photography. Although I have not completely understood the plot, specially the conclusion of the story, I found this movie very intriguing and I liked it. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Tabu" (Taboo")

kurai_hisui 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.