Gohatto (御法度)

Gohatto (御法度, also released internationally as Taboo) is a 1999 Japanese period film directed by Nagisa Oshima, adapted from Ryotaro Shiba's short stories about the Shinsengumi, the samurai security militia of late-Edo Kyoto, and centered on the homoerotic turmoil that spreads through the corps after a beautiful young recruit joins. It was Oshima's first feature in thirteen years and his last, completed after a 1996 cerebral hemorrhage left him severely debilitated.^{1 • 2}

Production history

Oshima had long planned to adapt Shiba's short story collection Shinsengumi Keppūroku, returning to Kyoto locations and working again with the composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, but illness delayed the project for years, and the actor originally chosen for the lead had outgrown the character's age by the time filming could begin.⁸ The production was announced in January 1996; the following month Oshima suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at Heathrow Airport while traveling to give a lecture. After treatment and rehabilitation he resumed work, and in 1999 he completed the film while fighting the physical and mental damage of the illness.⁹

The cast was assembled from unexpected choices. Ryuhei Matsuda, the son of the late Yusaku Matsuda, was selected for the lead at sixteen. Sai Yoichi, who had worked as assistant director on Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses, was asked by direct telephone call to play Kondō Isami, and was told on set that he did not need to do it well; Takeshi Kitano, Oshima's star from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, played the militia's second-in-command, Hijikata Toshizō.^{6 • 10} Casting the ethnic Korean director Sai as the corps leader and the working-class-identified Kitano as his deputy were among the provocations the International Film Festival Rotterdam's note identified in the film.¹⁰

The crew included the cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita, the editor Tomoyo Oshima (the director's daughter), the art director Yoshinobu Nishioka, and the costume designer Emi Wada, whose unconventional designs for the corps were noted by critics.^{1 • 11}

Themes and style

Oshima's career had repeatedly treated sexuality as a force that unsettles social order, and the Rotterdam program note reads Gohatto as closing his career the way it began, with an account of the revolutionary power of sexuality and the perils of desire.¹⁰ A Taiwanese retrospective program described the film as using dense symbolic codes to suggest, strongly and obliquely, the violent undercurrent behind an elegant, martial Japanese national character and the suppressed animality within a male collective.⁸

The film's tone is deliberately at odds with most Shinsengumi screen treatments. A Douban review contrasts its dark, oppressive palette, heavy with night scenes and interiors needing artificial light, with the energetic, youthful light-blue uniforms of the popular 2004 television drama Shinsengumi!, and argues that the film's particular blend of cruelty and sweetness has not been reproduced in later Japanese cinema.¹³ The same reviewer notes that the film uses Bizet's Carmen as background music for the Ikedaya fight sequence.¹³

Reception

The film was entered in the competition section of the 53rd Cannes Film Festival in 2000, and Oshima, who had at one point been near death, attended the festival.^{9 • 14} In Japan it placed third in Kinema Junpo's annual best-film ranking and received the Blue Ribbon Award for best film and the Blue Ribbon director award.⁶ Aggregated scores have remained moderate: 6.8 on IMDb, 75 on Metacritic, and 3.4 of 5 on Filmarks, with Kinenote users averaging 67.6 points from 421 ratings.^{7 • 1}

Sakamoto's score drew particular attention; the Shin-Bungeiza program note calls the music a topic of discussion in its own right, and the Rotterdam note calls it Sakamoto's best-ever score.^{6 • 10} The film has since been placed in Shochiku's own centennial selection of 100 films.⁴

Historical background

Although the story is fictional, a reviewer citing a letter of 20 May 1864 (Genji 1) from the corps commander Kondō Isami records that male love was in fact current within the Shinsengumi at the time.¹⁵ The film was shot at Kyoto locations including Hirosawa Pond, Nijō Castle, and Chion-in, which stood in for the corps headquarters.¹⁶

References

1. 御法度 – KINENOTE
2. Filmography, Nagisa Oshima Official Website
3. 御法度 – National Film Archive of Japan film search
4. 御法度 – 松竹映画100年の100選
5. 御法度 – 松竹シネマプラス
6. 御法度 – 新文芸坐 作品解説
7. 御法度 – 映画ポップコーン
8. Japan/F – Taipei City Government program notes
9. 映画監督 大島渚 公式サイト
10. Gohatto – International Film Festival Rotterdam
11. 『戦場のメリークリスマス』と『御法度』 – BANGER!!!
12. 〖影记〗御法度 – Douban review
13. 《御法度》影评 – Douban review
14. 御法度 – 映画.com
15. 御法度 – Filmarks review
16. ロケ地をめぐる旅 – 京都市メディア支援センター

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films late 1990s › Released in 1999

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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