The drinking is of monumental proportions. Works nicely as farce and social commentary. First movie in 14 years by the great Japanese Nagisa Oshima, is a curiosity taken from literary sources. Set in 1865, its theme is samurai and homosexuality. Oshima has a knack for the unusual, and here he even reverts to some silent film techniques, such as intertitles and spoken commentary.
Ironic script combines color, history, social criticism.
Touching , and with beautiful sets, costumes, photography. However, I am told that both those films were subsequently hits in other festivals and in European theaters. They are still unseen in the USA so far as I know. His latest may be just too deep and subtle for its own commercial good. A rich adolescent from industrialized Turin and a poor one from Calabria are thrown together, face the complexities of inter-relationships, similarities and differences, and so on.