Overview
A tale of forbidden love and loyalty set against the backdrop of samurai honor.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Moderate
- austere
- enigmatic
- sensual
- arthouse film night
- japanese cinema marathon
What critics said
Critics broadly regard the film as an unmistakably masterful, strange, and stylish work whose deliberate opacity can make it difficult to penetrate.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
The Shinsengumi's rigid masculine hierarchy is destabilized by the new recruit's erotic appeal to fellow warriors.
Sozaburo Kano's arrival triggers attraction, suspicion, and disciplinary conflict within the militia.
The film frames desire among the samurai as quiet, ritualized, and potentially violent.
The squad's codes of loyalty and conduct repeatedly collide with jealousy and sexual desire.
Films like Taboo, and why
The Last Samurai
period japanese drama combining homoerotic tension, restrained violence, and ritualized social codes
Harakiri
stylized samurai drama focused on loyalty, hierarchy, and destabilizing personal desire
The Emperor in August
austere japanese period film where sexuality, violence, and masculine honor intersect
Movie Details
- Director
- Nagisa Ōshima
- Release Date
- 1999-12-18
- Runtime
- 100 min
- Rating
- 6.6 / 10 (132)
Cast
- Takeshi Kitano
- Ryuhei Matsuda
- Tadanobu Asano
- Yōichi Sai
- Shinji Takeda
- Susumu Terajima
- Tomorowo Taguchi
- Yoji Tanaka
- Kei Satō
- Jiro Sakagami
Common questions
- What is Taboo about?
- A beautiful recruit turns a disciplined samurai militia into a pressure chamber of desire, jealousy, and lethal betrayal.
- What is Taboo like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Taboo as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Taboo violent?
- Somewhat. Ember rates the violence in Taboo as moderate.
- What did critics think of Taboo?
- Critics broadly regard the film as an unmistakably masterful, strange, and stylish work whose deliberate opacity can make it difficult to penetrate.
- Which films are like Taboo?
- Films with a similar feel include The Last Samurai, Harakiri, and The Emperor in August.
- How long is Taboo?
- Taboo runs 100 minutes.
