Remember junior high and high school days when "pretty boys" were pursued by hormone driven girls and somehow were popular with all the popular testosterone driven guys on the football team? Of course a few macho guys would often deny sexual feelings towards another man, yet some of the most outspoken deniers couldn’t help but cast an eye towards certain "pretty boys."

Such is the situation in Nagisa Oshima’s Taboo (Gohatto), set in 1865 feudal Japan where the Shinsen-gumi militia is recruiting new samurai warriors. Founded three years earlier, the Shinsen-gumi need outstanding fencers to control increasing radical samurai activity and maintain peace in Kyoto. Commander Isami Kondo (Yoichi Sai) and Lieutenant Toshizo Hijikata (Beat Takeshi) observe the fencing matches against their best militia man, Soji Okita (Shinji Takeda) to select the best two candidates. These are a peasant class samurai from the Kurume clan, Hyozo Tashiro (Tadanobu Asano), and an upper-class "pretty boy" named Sozaburo Kano (Ryuhei Matsuda).

Kano’s good looks dominate the themes of the story, even at the very top levels of the Samurai militia—Hijikata wonders if his long time comrade, Kono, has leanings that way when he quickly accepts young Kano’s claim that he is 18 years old. The camera emphasizes Kano’s soft feminine looking eyes, lips, and youthfulness in the process. He also keeps his hair boyishly long, which drives the men (that lean that way) crazy.

Immediately, Kano’s fellow recruit, Tashiro, falls for him, and he nestles close to Kano at night wondering if he’s ever slept with woman or man. Kano denies any feelings for women, yet appears reluctant to engage sexually with Tashiro. Nevertheless, rumors float around the militia that Kano is a virgin, and immediately various officers and militia begin to court the ambiguous Kano, causing various complications—not so much in the Samurai honor code, which doesn’t specifically outlaw homosexuality—it appears that "leaning that way" is an accepted lifestyle. Other items like not betraying the code or borrowing money can lead to instant beheadings—men being in love with other men results in samurai jokes, but resulting jealousies cause disruption in the orderly and controlled sub-culture.

Ryuhei Matsuda is obviously chosen for his youthful, handsome androgynous features and mostly acts very stiffly without emotion. Meanwhile, his presence is used as a plot device for the other characters, for he causes extreme confusion within the ranks, quietly reveling with the knowledge that he has jealous men competing for him. He does have one well done humorous moment where the slight rolling of his eyes signals his frustration with being the object of a potential male stalker. Mostly he glides through the film, hitting his marks without revealing his internal conflicts. Even when another samurai man has sex with him, his eyes stoically stare straight ahead without revealing.

The director makes the stereotypical character work, as much of the film revolves around a guessing game about the ambiguous young samurai—why does a rich boy join the militia, why doesn’t he cut his hair, will an experienced geisha successfully introduce him to the pleasures of females, who will lust after him next, and who (if anyone) does Kano really love?

Solving the mystery rests on the broad shoulders of veteran actor Beat Takeshi, the semi-stoic actor who communicates more in one glance than young Matsuda does throughout the entire film. Before figuring out the mystery, an effective scene between Takeshi and Shinji Takeda questions a vast range of male bonding, sexuality, and samurai code issues that has Takeshi even evaluate his own inner psyche—achieved through Takeshi’s very real subtle expressions and through the camerawork that examines a variety of scenarios. The American ending remains nicely ambiguous, which may frustrate people who like everything wrapped up in neat packages.

A far rougher film than Beat Takeshi fans are used to seeing, Taboo is anything but perfect. The subtitle cards used to fill in plot holes like old silent movies are annoying, but when the film gets back to business and follows Takeshi, it holds interest and is worth a rental if you can find a copy. That in itself is tricky unless you are able to catch it at a Gay film festival, can locate a rare DVD copy, or find an Asian source.