Shin’ya Tsukamoto

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Vital (2004)

    2001-2010DramaJapanShinya TsukamotoThriller
    Vital (2004)
    Vital (2004)

    After a tragic car accident where his girlfriend Ryôko Ooyama (Nami Tsukamoto) died, Hiroshi Takagi (Tadanobu Asano) suffers amnesia with his memories completely blanked. When he sees a book about dissection, he decides to join the medical school with the support of his parents. In the dissection class, his group participates of the autopsy of a young woman, and while cutting apart the tissue, he partially recalls his accident. Later, when he sees a tattoo in the arm of the corpse, he discloses that she was his girlfriend and becomes obsessed to go further in the examination of the body.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009)

    2001-2010HorrorJapanSci-FiShinya Tsukamoto

    Quote:
    Twenty years after making his breakout cult hit, “Tetsuo,” and 17 years after its sequel, “Tetsuo II: Body Hammer,” multihyphenate filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto busts out the big guns again with “Tetsuo the Bullet Man.” Contempo-set pic doesn’t bring much new to the half-man-half-machine concept, but with its delirious editing and eardrum-crunching soundtrack, it punches above its weight and musters a certain retro charm with its old-school effects, all done on about one-hundredth of the budget of a “Transformers” movie. Fans of the franchise will have this in their sights and show support, but crossover potential looks iffy.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Akumu tantei aka Nightmare Detective (2006)

    2001-2010AsianHorrorJapanShinya Tsukamoto

    Quote:
    In a big city, a wave of suicides catches fire. The modus operandi is always the same: the victims wildly stab themselves to death, cut their own throats and butcher themselves beyond recognition, without any apparent reason. The only thing the dead have in common is the phone number they call just before they perish at their own hand. Keiko, a crack policewoman, takes it upon herself to solve the case. Soon enough she reaches the conclusion that someone is entering the victims’ dreams and persuading them to take their own lives. She appeals to Kyoichi, a man known as a nightmare detective who can enter the dreams of others, to help. When Wakimaya, one of Keiko’s colleagues, falls victim to the killer, Keiko takes the risk and dials the number, though she knows that she may well be the next suicide on the list.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Rokugatsu no hebi AKA A Snake of June (2002)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaJapanShinya Tsukamoto

    Quote:
    When suicide hotline counselor Rinko (Asuka Kurosawa) receives explicit photos of herself from a mysterious caller, she is thrown into a depraved game of hidden fantasies and unrestrained sexual desire. As the voyeuristic stalker becomes determined to alter her passionless life, Rinko’s compulsively clean husband Shigehiko (Yuji Koutari) attempts to hunt him down and the three disillusioned soul’s paths will inevitably intertwine.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Kotoko (2011)

    2011-2020DramaHorrorJapanShinya Tsukamoto

    Synopsis:
    When a single mother suffers a nervous breakdown, she is suspected of child abuse and her child is taken away. Her mental suffering escalates as she succumbs to her darkest fantasies.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Zan (2018)

    2011-2020DramaJapanShinya Tsukamoto

    Quote:
    Set during the tumultuous mid-19th century Edo period of Japan, Killing is the story of a masterless samurai or ronin named Ikematsu Sosuke. As the prevalent peace and tranquility are sure to be replaced by war and conflict across the land the swordsman feels restlessness creep upon him.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Yôkai hantâ: Hiruko AKA Hiruko the Goblin (1991)

    1991-2000FantasyHorrorJapanShinya Tsukamoto

    Quote:
    A school was built on one of the Gates of Hell, behind which hordes of demons await the moment they will be free to roam the Earth. Hiruko is a goblin sent to Earth on a reconnaissance mission. He beheads students in order to assemble their heads on the demons’ spider-like bodies. Hieda, an archaeology professor, and Masao, a haunted student, investigate the gory deaths and eventually battle Hiruko.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Tokage AKA Lizard (2003)

    2001-2010AsianJapanShinya TsukamotoShort Film

    Tokage was commissioned by television network NHK for a series in which the works of famous Japanese authors would be narrated on film, as captured by noteworthy directors. Tsukamoto was asked to direct the short story Lizard, by Banana Yoshimoto.

    Lizard concerns a love affair between two healers who are unable to heal their own psychic wounds. The narrator is a counselor for disturbed children. He has fallen in love with a profoundly sad woman nicknamed Lizard who longs for oblivion. Lizard has an uncanny ability to diagnose and treat other people’s illnesses.Read More »

  • Shin’ya Tsukamoto – Kotoko (2011)

    2011-2020ArthouseDramaJapanShinya Tsukamoto

    Quote:
    Mother love gets the Shinya Tsukamoto treatment in the Japanese auteur’s latest mindfuck, a boldly abrasive, sometimes overwhelming tour of an unbalanced psyche. Said psyche belongs to a young, single mother (played by J-pop star Cocco) who imagines sinister doppelgangers lurking everywhere, stabs potential suitors with forks, lacerates her skinny arms with razors (“I cut my body to confirm it,” she muses in voiceover) and, above all, turns any activity involving her toddler son into grueling bouts of hysteria. Only singing seems to soothe her, and one of her songs catches the attention of a masochistic novelist (Tsukamoto) who’s willing to let her beat him into a bloody pulp in order to forge a relationship with her. Filmed with a reeling, zooming camera, scratchily edited, and set to a deafening cacophony of enfant shrieks and industrial noise, this virtuoso bit of grisliness may have something to say about violence-saturated societies nurturing Medea fantasies, but any thematic exploration plays second fiddle to Tsukamoto’s insistence on sheer sensory overload.Read More »

Back to top button