Taboo (1999 film)
| Gohatto | |
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| Gohatto (御法度?) | |
| Directed by | Nagisa Oshima |
| Produced by | Masayuki Motomochi |
| Written by | Nagisa Oshima |
| Based on |
Shinsengumi Keppūroku by Ryōtarō Shiba |
| Starring |
Ryuhei Matsuda Takeshi Kitano Tadanobu Asano |
| Music by | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
| Cinematography | Toyomichi Kurita |
| Edited by | Tomoyo Oshima |
| Distributed by |
Shochiku New Yorker Films (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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100 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Gohatto (御法度?) or Taboo is a 1999 Japanese film directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is about homosexuality in the Shinsengumi during the bakumatsu period, the end of the samurai era in the mid-19th century.
At the start of the movie, the young and handsome Kanō Sōzaburō (Ryuhei Matsuda) is admitted to the Shinsengumi, an elite samurai group led by Kondō Isami (Yoichi Sai) that seeks to defend the Tokugawa shogunate against reformist forces. He is a very skilled swordsman, but it is his appearance that makes many of the others in the (strictly male) group, both students and superiors, attracted to him, creating tension within the group of people vying for Kanō's affections.
The original title of the film, Gohatto, is an old-fashioned term that can be translated as "against the law". Nowadays, "gohatto" can be translated as "strictly forbidden" or "taboo" ("tabu").
During the filming of Taboo, actor Ryuhei Matsuda was sixteen years old.
It was Nagisa Oshima's final film.
Roger Ebert wrote that "Taboo is not an entirely successful film, but it isn't boring."Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said that it was "a film which for some will be dismayingly impenetrable, but it is unmistakably the work of a master film-maker and a work of enormous strangeness and charm." The film currently has a rating of 67% "fresh" on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.
The film was a financial success in Japan, grossing ¥1.01 billion and becoming one of the highest grossing films of the year. The film was also given a limited theatrical release in North America where it gross $114,425.
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