Shinya Tsukamoto on DVD

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Scharphedin2
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#1 Post by Scharphedin2 » Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:56 am

I have just posted a thread in the filmmaker subforum dedicated to the Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto. His films are available on DVD in various editions in different countries, and I am interested in hearing from forum members, who have seen his films, what they think of his work as such, as well as which DVD editions to purchase, and which to steer clear of.

Personally, I have only seen Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, and that was quite a long time ago. The film was exciting visually, and at the time I was quite engaged in the cyberpunk/industrial scene, so I enjoyed it from that perspective as well. It also seemed like a slightly messy film, and I wonder how it would hold up for me today.

From a brief article I read recently, Tsukamoto would appear to have come a long way since the Tetsuo films both thematically and aesthetically. Titles that stood out in the article were Haze and Snake of June.

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Cold Bishop
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#2 Post by Cold Bishop » Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:24 am

It seems that Tokyo Fist is usually regarded as his masterpiece, but of the few films of his I've seen, that is not among them. The R1 dvd is out of print, but I imagine it still be easy to get a hold of it.

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Scharphedin2
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#3 Post by Scharphedin2 » Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:55 am

Cold Bishop wrote:It seems that Tokyo Fist is usually regarded as his masterpiece, but of the few films of his I've seen, that is not among them. The R1 dvd is out of print, but I imagine it still be easy to get a hold of it.
Hi Cold Bishop, could you comment on any of the other Tsukamoto films you have seen?

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#4 Post by ranaing83 » Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:13 am

I'm a big fan of Tsukamoto's work. His filmography is certainly one of the more unique and idiosyncratic amongst working filmmakers, and I really love the experimental atmosphere of the works of his that I have seen.

I can easily recommend everything of his I have seen, if you are more adventurous in your tastes. I haven't seen Tokyo Fist, but I can recommend Vital (a slower, less visually frenetic Tsukamoto) Bullet Ballet, Gemini and A Snake of June. And of course, theres also the original Tetsuo.

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colinr0380
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#5 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:29 am

Thanks Scharphedin2 for setting this up. I really like Tsukamoto's films - my favourite for a long time was Tetsuo II, which I felt was a interesting restatement, but not remake, of the ideas from the first Tetsuo. I really like the first Tetsuo but found it got much too extreme for me when I first saw it in the middle of the night on a television showing at 14, and so preferred the more accessible and yet just as twisted in its own way second film! (That can be a good recommendation for seeing the first film though!)

A lot of the images from the first Tetsuo have stayed with me, from the opening of the fetishist cutting open his leg, shoving a metal bar into it, then running and gasping until he is knocked down by a car at which point we get some upbeat jazzy music playing over the camera roaming over the gril of the car which changes into a kind of metal landscape.

The lead and his girlfriend being responsible for knocking the guy into a ditch, thinking he is dead and then being so turned on by it all that they shag on the bonnet in front of him is an interesting Crash-style idea, and it is well developed in flashes over the film to show why the couple are first to be targeted.

I also liked the "mushi mushi" conversation between the guy and his girlfriend over the phone and the encounter between the lead and a stranger in the train station where she gets her hand infected and then proceeds to pursue him from the platform into a dingy network of tunnels and then into a toilet - it is quite an unnerving sequence.

I'm not as much a fan of the power drill penis scenes, which are more funny than disturbing, though it does give the girlfriend a spectacular death scene!

That is one of the reasons why I prefer the second Tetsuo as it gives the female character some personality while still keeping the shockingly bleak and homoerotic aspects of the earlier film, for example in the early chase scene where the woman is allowed to run faster than the male lead because he has been incapacitated - somehow that brief reversal, although only a short sequence, has stuck with me. I think it loses some of the disturbing power in the move to colour, but the industrial, metallic blues are beautiful and there are many sequences that disturb in different ways such as the amazing brightly lit flashback sequence that uses beautiful rural imagery while still managing to break almost every taboo in terms of sex scenes with guns, child abuse, child murderers and animal experimentation!

I remember the film being shown in 1997 by the BBC in their Forbidden season at around midnight and they still edited out a lot of the gun sex scene and the father's face being shot apart, so it must have been felt to be too strong even for that time of night!

I shouldn't underestimate the performance of Tomoroh (hope I spelled that right!) Taguchi as the lead in the two Tetsuo films (and in various parts throughout most of Tsukamoto's other films) - I guess being the lead of the two Tetsuo films are probably still what he is most famous for, even though he has taken roles in so many other films since.

My current favourite Tsukamoto film though is Bullet Ballet. It is an amazing drama exploring fascination with guns and trying to come to terms with a loved one's suicide to gang culture and its interactions with the world around it (from foreigners to big business to yakuza) through the eyes of a character alienated from all of it, and it even manages at the end to throw in a clash between different generations. This is probably the most complex and assured of the Tsukamoto films I've seen, with all these different issues touched on delicately but with a lasting impact (such as the woman who turns up to offer Goda a gun in exchange for marrying her so she can stay in the country or Chisato watching other young people study for their exams from a roof opposite while she might as well be a world apart from them).

The film also stands out in the way that, although violent, there is less a sense of excessiveness in the way it is presented in an attempt to shock the audience, which in a way gives the violence much more impact when it does occur.

All of his films have great endings, but Bullet Ballet I think stands out as the best of the best - sad and yet at the same time giving hope to the surviving characters for a chance to move on.

I'll have to come back with my thoughts on Tokyo Fist and A Snake of June later as it has been a while since I last saw them, and I've picked up DVDs of Haze, Vital and Gemini but have yet to sit down with them!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Wed Dec 01, 2010 3:00 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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teddyleevin
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#6 Post by teddyleevin » Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:43 pm

I don't know where to start with Tsukamoto. All I've seen that he was remotely involved in was Ichi. And all he did for that was act and provide semen (according to the DVD commentary). So, I'd like to see some of his directorial stuff. What should I see first?

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#7 Post by ranaing83 » Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:33 pm

Personally, I think that everyone looking to delve into Tsukamoto's work should start with the film that really started him off, Tetsuo. That film is pure insanity. In his subsequent work, he is able to refine that aesthetic extremity, to streamline it into a defined narrative form. So, in my opinion, start with Tetsuo and work your way from there.

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Galen Young
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#8 Post by Galen Young » Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:07 pm

Pathfinder is releasing a short documentary next month called Basic Tsukamoto, I'm hoping it's not a rehash of his interviews on the Tartan discs. The Tom Mes book is terrific. Does anybody know if any soundtrack albums to any of his films have ever been released? I'd kill for one from Tetsuo...

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teddyleevin
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#9 Post by teddyleevin » Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:32 pm

ranaing83 wrote:Personally, I think that everyone looking to delve into Tsukamoto's work should start with the film that really started him off, Tetsuo. That film is pure insanity. In his subsequent work, he is able to refine that aesthetic extremity, to streamline it into a defined narrative form. So, in my opinion, start with Tetsuo and work your way from there.
That works for me, and you gave good reason for that choice. I'm going to order it from the library now.

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Scharphedin2
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#10 Post by Scharphedin2 » Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:41 am

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts on Tsukamoto's films, and especially to Colin for the long and detailed appraisal.

Now, if I am interested in acquiring Tsukamoto's films on DVD, could you help recommend which versions to go with?

I assume that for the early films, the Raro release would be ideal, as it also includes a short film that is (to my knowledge) unavailable anywhere else.

Then, Tartan has released most of his other films in UK (and some of them in the US). Are these good releases? And/or are better releases available elsewhere (with English subtitles)?

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colinr0380
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#11 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:56 pm

DVD Basen is an excellent site that I usually use to search for reviews and compare releases from different regions.

I've only got VHS copies of the Tetsuo films and Tokyo Fist, so I can't comment on them, but most of Tartan's discs are usually very good quality (and they seem to include DTS tracks as standard on all their discs). This is a Digital Bits article about the earlier US discs of those three films.

The UK Tartan disc I have of A Snake Of June has no extras except the usual essay, trailers and 2.0, 5.1 and DTS soundtracks. DVD Beaver

There is a comparison of the UK and US Tartan discs of Vital on DVD Beaver. I've got the UK version.

This is a review of Haze.

Image Entertainment released a region 1 disc of Gemini last year which also includes the making of documentary by Takashi Miike, which made the disc an essential purchase for me!

I did get a region 3 disc of Bullet Ballet a couple of years before Artsmagic released their disc. The region 3 disc didn't look much different from the eventual Artsmagic disc (DVD Beaver) and had English subtitles so without much to choose between them in that area I'd give the edge to the Artsmagic for the Tom Mes commentary, interviews with subtitles and menu screens in English.

I also have the UK Artsmagic disc of Hiruko The Goblin which looks OK.

There only seems to be the Japanese disc of Nightmare Detective out at the moment (found a German review of the disc), but hopefully it should get picked up on region 1 or 2 soon...but then I'm still waiting hopefully for a release of Kitano's latest film, Takeshis'!)

I hope this has been some help!
ranaing83 wrote:Personally, I think that everyone looking to delve into Tsukamoto's work should start with the film that really started him off, Tetsuo. That film is pure insanity. In his subsequent work, he is able to refine that aesthetic extremity, to streamline it into a defined narrative form. So, in my opinion, start with Tetsuo and work your way from there.
I agree, I think of the Tetsuo films as the fantastical style of body horror (perhaps along with Hiruko The Goblin, though that is more of a mainstream horror film) with Tokyo Fist as a transition film to films like Bullet Ballet and Snake of June that tackle the same sorts of themes but without people transforming into metal monsters! For example a loss of a loved one and alienation in a hi-tech world run through most of the films I've seen so far. The main character's cancer in Snake of June being an attack on her integrity from within is similar to the main character's change in the Tetsuo films, and with a similar conclusion of coming to an acceptance of the changes (that occur both physically and in the altered perception the characters have of their own bodies) on its own terms.

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manicsounds
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#12 Post by manicsounds » Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:12 pm

Although the American disc of Tetsuo which I think is OOP has DTS Dolby 5.1 along with mono, the sound really doesn't enhance it too much. Also, it's a PAL->NTSC conversion and there is a green tint to the BW image. The Japanese R2 is the best for Tetsuo but doesn't have english subtitles

Many of his Japanese releases have subtitles, Snake Of June, Gemini, Vital, but none on the extras and all of good quality.

I recommend the Korean disc of Snake Of June. All the extras from Japan, english subtitles, but none for the extras, and much cheaper

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MichaelB
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#13 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:05 am

manicsounds wrote:The Japanese R2 is the best for Tetsuo but doesn't have english subtitles
...though this is less of a drawback than you might expect. There's virtually no dialogue, and in fact when I saw it at the ICA Cinema way back in 1990 it didn't have subtitles either.

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colinr0380
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#14 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:36 pm

It looks like Tsukamoto's next film is a sequel to Nightmare Detective.

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zedz
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#15 Post by zedz » Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:26 pm

MichaelB wrote:
manicsounds wrote:The Japanese R2 is the best for Tetsuo but doesn't have english subtitles
...though this is less of a drawback than you might expect. There's virtually no dialogue, and in fact when I saw it at the ICA Cinema way back in 1990 it didn't have subtitles either.
Same with me. As I recall, half the dialogue in the film was "moshi moshi"! Seeing it with subtitles, it didn't make any more / less sense.

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Fan-of-Kurosawa
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Re: Shinya Tsukamoto on DVD

#16 Post by Fan-of-Kurosawa » Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:54 am

I just bought the R4 Australian release of Tetsuo and Tetsuo 2. I have not found anything about this release on the internet so I should offer a few comments.

First of all, both films come on a single dual layer dvd. This sounds horrible but if we take into account that the combined duration of the films is 145 minutes it is not such a big deal. Besides that, the are no extras on the disc except for 2 trailers (one for each film) and 2 stills galleries. The transfers look fine but I can' t say how they compare to the other releases because I haven' t seen any of them. Of course, both films come with eng subs that are thankfully removable (by remote). Finally, both films come with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio tracks.

In conclusion, this version appears fine and is a good and inexpensive alternative to the Tartan R2 versions. (In comparison to the R2 versions the only thing it misses are the liner notes.)

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