i accidentally watched 2 minutes of a YT video about the russians discovering aliens and BAM! next thing you know my youtube homepage is invaded with truthers videos.
Yesterday i watched for .. either 3rd or 4th time
Gohatto (Taboo) -
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213682/
a film starring, but not directed by, Takeshi Kitano.
I obviously caught this in the theaters back in 1999 because i was in full-on adoration of the guy, who would then go on to make Brother the next year, and Zatoichi in 2003, both amazing, unique films.
The director is instead Nagisa Oshima, who directed the cult classic (in Japan) Pleasures Of The Flesh, and the (frankly, pretty mediocre) art-porn In The Realm Of The Senses.
Now, Gohatto .. is not easy to summarize. I wanted to take on the opinions of the other IMDb reviewers and i'm staggered by how many see this as a LGBT film. Spoiler: it's not. AT ALL. Much spoilers below.
Gohatto is the story of the young samurai Kano, played by Ryuhei Matsuda. Allegedly, he is very cute. A local clan is recruiting skilled samurais to stop an insurrection, and Kano is one of the top-tier swordsmen being tested to join the clan. Along with him, samurai Hyozo is also one of the finalists.
Now, there is some bum-bandit stuff going on in this film. In fact, homosexual relations are a key point of the plot. Gay sex was not seen as "deviant" in feudal Japan, and it was fairly common for older samurai to take a younger samurai as a protege'/lover. While this may have been common, it doesn't mean that the younger samurai *liked it*.
Kano and Kyozo are both very skilled swordsmen and they are both hired. A third main character is Capt Toshizo, played by Kitano.
There is a story about a band of samurai from a insurgent faction insulting the dojo of the clan, and the clan trying to murder them in revenge. But the main plot is based around the interaction between these 3 characters, with some other supporting characters thrown in.
Kano is in fact very cute and a whole bunch of the clan leaders want to have sex with him, and they do. being rather short sighted, they all scheme against each other for the affections of Kano. But Toshizo understands that something's not right.
He spars against both, and realizes that, while Kano is by far the better swordsman, he can't fight against Hyozo. It emerges that Hyozo was the first to have sex with him, before the film starts, and Kano - who was obviously not thrilled with the surprise buttsecs - is just looking for a chance to get his revenge. And, as the film ends, Kano murders his would-be lover, and has managed to likewise neutralize the others who want to buttsecs him.
The film does not make this obvious in any way, it's literally just a last-minute revelation that Toshizo has. Kano plays stupid and fools not only his lovers, but the audience as well.
I very much liked Gohatto .. for different reasons. First off, let me say that the photography is really not good in this film. The guy in charge cannot seem to get a consistent scene lighting and as such it's both hard to see, and a lot of the imagery is spoiled. The direction also could use a somewhat brisker pace. The story seems plain at first sight, but deviously cunning at the end. However, i feel they could have milked it more: think of The Usual Suspects, it doesn't just end when the policeman guy realizes that Verbal's lied to him - there is that really strong ending scene where Spacey is revealed to be the very real and very evil Keyser Soze. Gohatto instead just throws it there.
The film opens in media rex, which i like, and there is a lot of "samurai porn" - swordfights, kendo, kempo, geishas, and generic "ye old feudal japan" stuff to keep a weaboo like myself interested. The music is by Ryuichi Sakamoto so don't get your hopes up.
All in all, it's a film that i wouldn't recommend, unless you have a samurai fetish like i do, in which case, i totally would recommend it. But if you are in for a Kitano film, i would strongly urge you to watch either Zatoichi or Brother first, as they are much better films.
My vote (biased):
7/10 - not to everyone's taste