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Shinya Tsukamoto (1960- )



Filmography
(Important! If you purchase any of the DVDs listed below released outside the US and UK, I am not sure of the availability of subtitles except where noted)

Futsu saizu no kaijin (The Phantom of Regular Size) (short, 1986) REM (R2 DE) – included as extra on double feature of Tetsuo and Sogo Ishii's Electric Dragon 80,000 V

Denchu Kozo no boken (The Great Analog World) (short, 1987) Raro (R2 IT) – included no Trilogia Tsukamoto - with English subs/ Studio Canal (R2 FR) – included in Asian Classics, Vol. 4

Tetsuo (1989) Tartan/Genius (R1) / Fox Lorber (R1) / Tartan (R2 UK) / Raro (R2 IT) – included on Trilogia Tsukamoto - with English subs / REM (R2 DE) – as double feature with Sogo Ishii's Electric Dragon 80,000 V / Studio Canal (R2 FR) – included in Asian Classics, Vol. 3 / Filmmax (R2 ES) / Beam Entertainment (R2 JP) / Kaijyu Theater (R2 JP) – included in Shinya Tsukamoto Collector's Box

Yokai Hanta – Hiruko (Hiroku The Goblin) (1990) Fangoria/Media Blasters (R1 US) / Eastern Cult Cinema (R2 UK) / Studio Canal (R2 FR) – included in Asian Classics, Vol. 4 / I-ON New Media (R2 DE) / Kaijyu Theater (R2 JP) / Panorama (R3 HK) – with English subs

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) Manga Entertainment (R1) / Raro (R2 IT) – included no Trilogia Tsukamoto - with English subs / Studio Canal (R2 FR) – included in Asian Classics, Vol. 3 / Filmmax (R2 ES) / Kaijyu Theater (R2 JP) – included in Shinya Tsukamoto Collector's Box

Tokyo Fist (1995) Manga Entertainment (R1) / Studio Canal (R2 FR) – included in Asian Classics, Vol. 5 / Rapid Eye Movies (R2 DE) / Kaijyu Theater (R2 JP) – included in Shinya Tsukamoto Collector's Box

Bullet Ballet (1998) Artsmagic (R1) / Artsmagic (R2 UK) / Studio Canal (R2 FR) – included in Asian Classics, Vol. 5 / Filmax (R2 ES) / Kaijyu Theater (R2 JP) – included in Shinya Tsukamoto Collector's Box / Fejui Media Corporation (R3 TW) /

Sôseiji (Gemini) (1999) Image Entertainment (R1 US) / Studio Canal (R2 FR) – included in Asian Classics, Vol. 4 / Warner Home Video (R2 JP) – with English subtitles / Ocean Shores Video (R3 HK) / Cineline (R3 KR) – with English subs

Rokugatsu no hebi (A Snake of June) (2002) Tartan/Genius (R1) / Tartan (R2 UK) / REM (R2 DE) / Happinet (R2 JP) – with English subtitles / EVS Entertainment (R3 HK) / Marvel Entertainment (R3 KR) /

Vital (2004) Tartan/Genius (R1) / Tartan (R2 UK) / Rapid Eye Movies (R2 DE) / Happinet (R2 JP) – with English subs

Fîmeiru (Female) (segment, 2005) Sega (R2 JP)

Haze (short, 2005) REM (R2 DE) / Terra (R2 UK)

Akumu tantei (Nightmare Detective) (2006) Raro (R2 IT) – with English subs / SUNFILM Entertainment (R2 DE) / Happinet (R2 JP)

Nightmare Detective 2 (2008)

Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009)


General Discussion

Shinya Tsukamoto on DVD


Recommended Web Resources

Disinformation – Overview and resource guide by Alex Burns

Midnight Eye – Interview with Tsukamoto by Kuriko Sato

Midnight Eye – Review of Tetsuo by Tom Mes

Midnight Eye – Review of Tom Mes' book Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto

Shinya Tsukamoto Fansite


Books/Articles

Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto by Tom Mes (FAB Press, 2005)

Twitch Film have put up a review for Shinya Tsukamoto's 'Nightmare Detective 2', and it's positively glowing. The review can be found here.

Nightmare Detective was such a letdown. I’ve liked his every other film, Haze was great, but Nightmare Detective was so messy. It certainly tried to tell a story(?), but at the same time I didn‘t know at all what the hell was going on. There was almost some “sold out“-feel to the whole thing. Acceptable in a way, as I‘ve read he‘s been making his living mostly with voice-over acting, not with the movies. He is said to be very slow with his films, and that‘s not really working in Japanese industry nowadays, which depends on low budget and short shooting schedule, but basically produces “do whatever you want to“ sort of movies. Watched the trailer for the sequel - was that girl straight from Ringu? I don’t know, it looked like it’s going to be a typical j-horror picture and at the same time it didn’t look like one. I hope this trilogy is just to back up something bigger. Twitch’s Todd Brown gave positive reviews for “Sauna” and “Dark Floors”, the two Finnish horror movies, maybe two of the worst of all times, so I wouldn‘t put too much weight on his reviews.

MB wrote:Nightmare Detective was such a letdown. I’ve liked his every other film, Haze was great, but Nightmare Detective was so messy.

I agree Nightmare Detective was a letdown, particularly since the three immediately previous features, Haze, Vital, and Snake of June, seemed to signal an increasing desire to integrate his preoccupations with stronger story lines. It seems every time Tsukamoto tries to make a "commercial" film, he fails. I thought both Gemini and Hiruko the Goblin were muddled and without resonance, in sharp contrast to his films such as Tokyo Fist and Bullet Ballet.

Twitch has trailers and negative review of Tetsuo: The Bullet Man.

A more intriguing review of Tetsuo: The Bullet Man from Tom Mes at the Midnight Eye site, along with an interview.

UK Blu-ray release of Kotoko and the first two Tetsuo films in October 2012 from Third Window. We can also add the US Region 1 release of Tetsuo: The Bullet Man by IFC Films to the above list.

I'm really posting here though to ask whether anyone knows of any release of Nightmare Detective 2 available on DVD?

colinr0380 wrote:I'm really posting here though to ask whether anyone knows of any release of Nightmare Detective 2 available on DVD?

Not with English subtitles, far as I know. Til these TWF releases, Tsukamoto seemed to've dropped off the radar as far as Nth American/UK labels were concerned, and Nightmare Detective 2 sadly fell into that black hole in the meantime.
This should be the first decent English-friendly release of Body Hammer since VHS, which'll be wonderful to see, finally.

That is a shame about Nightmare Detective 2. I have the 2006 US DVD release of the first film from the Dimension Extreme label and would certainly like to see the sequel some time, despite these films being in a more 'commercial' horror vein than Tsukamoto's better known works. Perhaps it was caught up in a similar situation to Hiruko The Goblin, another film which seemingly because it was comparatively more of a conventional mainstream horror seemed to become more difficult to distribute internationally.

I'd certainly not be against re-buying the first Nightmare Detective if a Blu of both that film and its sequel were ever released! (hint, hint!)

However I'm still happy about Kotoko, since I hadn't even been aware until this news that Tsukamoto had a new film out!

Adam Grikepelis wrote:This should be the first decent English-friendly release of Body Hammer since VHS, which'll be wonderful to see, finally.

What was wrong with the Tartan DVD?

However I'm still happy about Kotoko, since I hadn't even been aware until this news that Tsukamoto had a new film out!

Here's the Toronto Film Festival review of Kotoko from Twitch, Colin. Very excited for this.

colinr0380 wrote:I'd certainly not be against re-buying the first Nightmare Detective if a Blu of both that film and its sequel were ever released! (hint, hint!)

I would also love to see TWF put out a decent edition of Haze, which despite it's runtime, I put well in to top-tier Tsukamoto.

I'd love to see a decent version of Haze - the DVD was only a fraction as powerful as a 35mm screening, largely because the picture was so dark I could barely make out anything at all, which absolutely wasn't an issue at the festival screening I caught.

It's crazy how dark the DVD was. It was so dark infact that I was forced to boost the brightness up to about 80% which meant watching the film with a bright grey border. I would have loved to have caught this in 35mm, very jealous!

MichaelB wrote:What was wrong with the Tartan DVD?

See, this is what happens when you go from memory, without checking your facts, and blurt it out on a message board. You feel a bit like a fool.

To be honest Michael, I'm not sure - I feel like it might've been a case of the image not sounding quite as good as it could've been. Of course, I can't seem to find any reviews of the disc years later. If it was anything like the Manga release of the visually similar Tokyo Fist, that'd be about right. For some reason I had in my head that the disc was non-anamorphic, though to go by IMDB, it may've only been framed at 1.37:1 anyway. Sigh...

I'm just having a quick spin through a checkdisc of the new Third Window Blu-ray, with both Tetsuos on one disc and a supplementary extras DVD.

Early indications are that both films look and (especially) sound terrific - Tsukamoto apparently approved the transfers himself, and they're exactly what I was hoping for. A quick spin suggests digital fiddling is minimal to nonexistent - grain is clearly visible on both films, and very very obviously indeed on Tetsuo: The Iron Man, which is hardly surprising given its black-and-white 16mm origins. The latter alternates between startlingly sharp and noticeably softer shots, but that's almost certainly a reflection of the original materials.

Aspect ratios for both are 1.37:1 (or 1.33:1 - sorry, I'm not anal enough to actually measure the proportions, but you'll get the general idea) - no great surprise, as I don't think I've ever seen them framed differently, but given Tsukamoto's involvement I think we can take them as definitive.

I haven't explored the extras yet, but there's an 18-minute Tsukamoto interview, though potentially the most exciting inclusion is his 45-minute student film The Adventures of Electric Rod Boy, which is apparently the first time it's had subtitles in English. It's presented in SD, but the source was clearly analogue videotape.

Third Window are also working on some more of Tsukamoto's earlier films, that will come out in 2013 (depending on the sales of Tetsuo). Hopefully, they'll manage to get hold of some of the original materials as I'm guessing that, like Electric Rod Boy, they will have been filmed on 8mm and when you're working on a digibeta that looks like this, there's only so much you can do.

Kotoko @thedigitalfix
Seems like Third Window have done a fantastic job with both of these Tsukamoto releases. Easily among my most anticipated releases this year and looking like I won't be disappointed.

The trailer for Tsukamoto's new film Zan (Killing), a samurai film. Here's a Hollywood Reporter review from Venice.

I saw Killing the other week and found it one of Tsukamoto's most dreary efforts to date. Clocks in though at a short 80 minutes.

Does anyone have a copy of his short film Tokage? I'm trying to view it. It's the only one I have not seen.

colinr0380 wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2023 7:00 pm Trailer for Hokage (Shadow of Fire)

Thank you, looks wonderfull. A mixture of Kotoko, Nobi and Zan.