If you don't know the history of Xinxuan Group, it is impossible to understand "Yu Fa Du". I watched this film once when it first came out. After watching it for less than ten minutes, I felt inexplicable and gave up watching it. Fortunately, some time ago, I watched a nearly 50-episode Dahe drama "Xinxuan Group". So when I watch "The Imperial Law" again, because I have a certain amount of relevant historical knowledge, I can continue to read it. The newly selected stories in this "The Imperial Law", I feel that the Japanese spoof our "Journey to the West" to let Sun Wukong and the white bone spirit. Like falling in love, he used a more taboo subject to spoof these famous samurai from the Shinsengumi. Let this bunch of samurai flaunt their loyalty into the erotic storm of homosexuality. Homosexuality explains the brotherhood of the Shinsengumi, as well as their history of unity and division.
Director Nagisa Oshima is a film master who we pay attention to a lot but see very few actual works. Compared with Akira Kurosawa, who pays attention to people's spiritual world, he seems to pay more attention to people's emotions, and is keen to present those secret and wild emotions and sexuality. Whether it is "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" and "Godfather" that express homosexuality, or "The World of the Senses" and "Dead of Love" that express personal love, or "Max, My Love" that expresses animal love. The techniques of expression are refined, concise, bold and Japanese.
"The Imperial Law" is a movie that is getting better and better, but I didn't understand why Hijikata said at the end: Ghana loves the chief secretary. I feel that it seems that it is more likely to fall in love with the humble Yamazaki. After all, the director uses a lot of brushstrokes to describe the interaction between two people, those feelings that arise spontaneously inadvertently.
What surprised me was that the death of Shannan, an important event in the Shinsengumi, was also interpreted by Okita as a vicious incident of jealousy among men.
The music is made by Ryuichi Sakamoto, which is very good. It is very oriental and subtle, obscure, melancholy and subtle with the Western-structured swirling music. Among those actors, Matsuda Ryuping does have a coquettish temperament, but it doesn't feel special (perhaps there are more Korean artists of this type recently). As for Takeshi Kitano, his acting skills have never been the standard for measuring this guy. With him around, any movie will somehow be a little more evil.
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