Set in 1865 Kyoto, the story centers on a samurai militia unit that fiercely defends the shogunate. Desperately in need of new recruits, the unit enlists 18-year-old Kano, a fearless warrior whose mesmerizing good looks immediately intrigue his fellow students, superiors and even his captain (Beat Takeshi, Fireworks and Brother).

Before long, Kano's bewitching beauty stirs up jealously and competition within the militia. After a series of mysterious murders provoke further suspicion, disorder erupts. The visually tantalizing sword fights become eroticized rituals devoted to the forces of sex and death, exploding into a final image of exquisite beauty and fury.

Events centre on a new recruit to a Japanese militia in 1865 Kyoto. Sozaburo Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda) is the good-looking trainee samurai who enters the ranks of the Shinsengumi, martial enforcers of the Shogunate's declining rule. Soon he is the object of infatuation and intrigue by a number of his barracks-mates and superiors, including fellow trainee Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano), Lieutenant Soji Okita (Kano Shinji Takeda), a couple of Unit Leaders, and so forth. Much of this homosexuality is suggested by rumour, or just implication; eventually it leads murder while Sozaburo is ordered to kill the main object of his affection...

For those more used to the straight samurai of old, Oshima's suggestions of cuddles beneath the kimono is a surprise (more outrage was generated in Japan, where it was felt more strongly that such suggestions ran against a proud tradition). One can never imagine stouthearted Toshiro Mifune, the most famous cinematic samurai from the previous generation, falling for another soldier and interrupting his role in Seven Samurai for a romp in the dojo. Cult actor/director 'Beat' Takeshi, here playing Captain Toshizo Hijikata, seems at first sight an odd choice for this sort of drama too, until one remembers the gay gunman he played so convincingly in Takashi Ishii's Gonin (1995). With his impassive face he reduces introspection to the reoccurring flicker of his (real life) tic, which, most aptly here, can suggest everything and nothing. Hijikata's internal narrative, first quizzical about Sozabura's lovers then perturbed about his effect on the garrison, suggests growing doubts resolved only in the final, memorable scene.

In Gohatto, much of the interest of the film lays in the degree in which Sozaburo's beauty arouses the interest of the men around him. Some are openly attracted to him (notably Tashiro, who shortly attempts to climb into the bed with him). Others are on the edge, like Inspector Yamazaki, charged with taking him to the brothel in Shimabara to introduce the youth to women. Most are affected in one way or another; most enigmatically are Hojikata and his superior and close colleague Commander Kondo (Yoichi Sai). As Hojikata observes, "a samurai can be undone by a love of men." But then he wonders too "Why are we both so indulgent with Sozabura?" and Kondo's rectitude and conspicuous silence hides, we suspect, a greater interest in the youth than he might wish to admit.

Oshima's visual scheme creates a film full of the bare, dark wood interiors of the militia base and the mud brown of uniforms, where just a few significant colours stand out. During the early beheading of the renegade samurai by Sozabuta, it is the red splash of the executed man's blood. At other times, Sozabuta wears a unique white robe (the Japanese colour of death). His is a presence and beauty shortly associated with a form of annihilation. In a place full of military men, that we see this feminine youth kill most often is no surprise. Compared to his contemporaries, he is the most adept at the sword unless fazed by romantic entanglements. It's an obvious irony that the object of homosexual affection is also the most deadly of the men; there's more in the fact that a group of iron-hearted soldiers can be so easily divided by an 'enemy' within, one neither fierce nor commanding.

There's another mystery in Gohatto, besides who exactly is sleeping with Sozabuta and who wants to. It's who is the murderer of Yuzawa (Tomorowo Taguchi), and doubts as to the truth of the case persist. This, and the attempt to apprehend the intruders at the base ("they call these samurai?") provide the main impetus of the plot. Like so many great Japanese films of the past, Oshima's says a lot in restraint. Here the arrangement of seated figures within the frame can suggest unspoken tensions, order is paramount, and the use of the camera is elegant and discreet. Some see the resulting style dull, when it is a slower, more contemplative way of seeing the world, one where not every question is answered.

What exactly is 'taboo' in Gohatto is clearly the issue of homosexuality - although confusingly for Western audiences such matters are not explicitly forbidden. Reference is made to the military code, which hangs on the barrack walls. Extracts appear on screen too, but no mention is made of prohibiting gay relations between soldiers. A man may be beheaded for illicitly borrowing money, but sleeping with his comrades at arms, while gossip worthy, is only really of concern when discipline is threatened. There "no secrets on Heaven and Earth (and) everyone knows it," says one of the intertitles, and Hojikata himself refers to the "tacit understanding" which normally keeps things in check. A policy which roughly equates to the modern American army's own "Don't ask, don't tell."

The film is helped immensely by Ryuichi Sakamoto's incessant, metronomic score, the steady beat of which considerably amplifies the obsessions and drawn out tensions of events. Like Oshima's interiors, it is uncluttered music, the muted colours dashed with an occasional significant tone. Now and again, urgency and violence break into this world: the initial beheading scene, the murderer's attacks, or the sword battle by the river. As a package, the result readily deserves art house admirers - especially as the director saves the best scene for last, expressing both Hojikata's final position, and a main thread of Gohatto, with hardly a cut more than necessary. Recommended.

Nishi-Honganji temple is the recruitment grounds for the Shinsengumi, a pro-Imperial militia who are steadily adding to their ranks. The commander, Kondo (Yoichi Sai) and the lieutenant, Hijikata (Beat Takeshi), settle on two new recruits -- a low-level samurai named Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano), and Sozaburo Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda), a young man so improbably handsome he could easily pass for a woman. Tashiro takes one look at Sozaburo and is instantly attracted to him. Unfortunately, so is most of the rest of the outfit.

There are a couple of ways this material could be developed. One, it could have been turned into a slapstick Japanese bedroom farce, with one samurai going out the door while another crawls into the bed, etc., etc. Two, it could have turned into a gory, erotic/morbid story like in one of Yukio Mishima's novels. Oshima didn't follow either of those paths and instead made a coolly tongue-in-cheek story that takes its material seriously, but not so seriously that it collapses into pretentiousness. It's a very funny movie, but in an underhanded way that we don't often notice, and a lot of people are liable to be put off by such an approach.

Gohatto develops its story by playing the gay-love intrigue of Sozaburo's suitors against a number of larger stories. An attempt to get Sozaburo in bed with a girl fails miserably -- but interestingly enough, we are not shown this directly; we are told about it by a third party who might very well not be telling the truth. At one point Sozaburo gets into a sparring match with one of his partners, someone who he could have easily trounced, and is himself slapped around the room. The others take this as a sure sign that he's in love with the other man as well, but Sozaburo vehemently denies it. In fact, a great deal about Sozaburo doesn't quite add up until the final 20 minutes of the movie, when we get to see both his psyche and his libido splayed open.

Among the movie's various surprises is the presence of Beat Takeshi in a role that runs completely contrary to almost everything he's done in a long time. Here he is no less stone-faced or taciturn in his role as the lieutenant, but he projects great empathy and intelligence. He also has the very last scene all to himself, in which he shakes his head sadly about all that's gone before -- and then does one last thing, wordlessly, that takes everything we have learned throughout the whole movie and snaps it into perfect perspective. It's one of the best one-man endings to a story since George Dzundza's monologue in the little-seen Streamers, except instead of a speech, we get a simple image that says more than the character himself can supply.

Oshima shoots his story with great lushness of style, with night scenes steeped in long shadows and blue lights. He also deigns to intrude every now and then with a title card that solidifies his take on events, but the final scene plays out as one almost completely unbroken shot, with no editorializing.

Gohatto is not a movie about gigantic emotional revelations or earth-shaking moments in a personal life. It'salmost deliberately a movie in a minor key, despite some of the material it traverses. A number of people have criticized the movie for taking this note with the material, but I found it curiously refreshing. It tries to seduce us into learning about its characters instead of beating us over the head with manufactured confrontations. Lovely as it is, I liked it without ever falling completely in love with it -- and if the movie's philosophy is being read correctly by me, then perhaps I am all the wiser for not doing so.