Oshima Nagisa’s 1999 film Gohatto offers a glimpse of relationship dynamics within shūdō (male-male relationships) framed in the context of a bakumatsu era jidaigeki. However, it is a jidaigeki without the formal elements and historical accuracy of a jidaigeki. While homoerotic and militarily patriarchal in its themes the film comments little on homophobia and misogyny in Japan. Instead it comments on desire and the suppression of individual desire for the greater good, suggesting an individual vs