Film
Taboo
Other titles called Taboo: the 2017 series (BBC One).
Takeshi Kitano's 1999 period thriller examines desire and power in a samurai militia during Japan's late Edo era. Tense, deliberate, and unflinching about sexuality as a destabilizing force in hierarchical male spaces. Shot in stark palettes with long silences. For viewers who prize atmosphere over action and can sit with uncomfortable psychological complexity.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you are drawn to period dramas where tension lives in glances, rituals and what goes unsaid, and you don't mind a story that refuses to explain its own politics.
Skip it if you want a samurai film with swordplay and momentum, because the blades stay sheathed for long stretches and the pace is deliberate to the point of stillness.
What it asks of you: Settle in for about a hundred minutes of slow, formal scenes where meaning sits in silence and composed framing, and you must read the room yourself.
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Recommended by
Sword of the Beast, The Hurricane, Zatoichi: Darkness Is His Ally, Blind Woman's Curse, The Room, The Driller Killer, Tomie