Bullet Ballet

First off, those expecting the David Lynch-on-Angel Dust style of the 1st Tetsuo movie and Tokyo Fist will probably be disappointed. Like Tokyo Fist, this is Shinya Tsukamoto at his most personal and heartbreaking. I saw this film at the Montreal FantAsia festival and came out puzzled by what I saw. Here I was, expecting Tsukamoto to cut loose again...and this movie was, by the standards of his earlier work, relatively calm. I'd compare it to Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" in that people will soon be hailing this one as a masterpiece.

The film is the story of two people linked together by ideals and tragedy. Tsuda is a director of commercials who is heartbroken by the suicide of his fiancee for mysterious reasons. He soon develops a fascination with guns.

Later on, we meet Chisato, a young woman who is the driving force behind a gang of Japanese toughs. Tsuda forms a bond with Chisato through multiple encounters with the gangs. Whereas the other members of the gang are middle-class kids looking for fun, Chisato has a death wish and a suicidal streak which propels her to violence.

Here's hoping that Bullet Ballet gets released soon, as it is technically perfect as well as emotionally dead-on.

Tsukamoto is like a spiritual brother to Cronenberg. The grotesque body horror that accompanies most of their films. Their purpose to replace sex (in the classical sense) with a metaphorical equivalent. In Tetsuo it was mechanical, in Tokyo First it was violent punches and in this one there is that weird gun and bullets (of course)...that also replace war and death / suicide.

Tsukamoto is, however, a more rebellious soul. A soul less prone to the parameters of conventional filmmaking. More experimental and more cryptic in a more Japanese sense.

This is not ment to be enjoyable, it is ment to satisfy an already tormented viewer with more of what they already feel, angst, fear, uncertainty, inner violence.

Another Japanese film choice last night , by writer/director/ actor Shinya "Tetsuo: The Iron Man". Like that classic , this is also shot in grainy black and white , employing frantic at times camerawork and some montage / animation briefly . It also has a Thirlwell/ Foetus style industrial soundtrack, and again deals with themes of alienation in a mega city.

Bullet Ballet, released in 1998,starts with Goda (played by the main man Shinya Tsukamoto) as a commercials director living in Tokyo who arrives home to find his wife has shot herself - either by accident or intent - with a .38 "chief's special" revolver. Goda suffers a breakdown of sorts and becomes obsessed with getting himself a similar piece. This leads him into contact with various underworld characters and into direct conflict with a gang of so-called street 'teamsters' - Japanese youths who work straight jobs but commit gang crimes at night. It is said that the idea for the film came from an actual street robbery experienced by Tsukamoto and the film mirrors his own very real feeling of complete helplessness as the gang take his money and deliver a beating without a whimper of resistance. This is just the start, and the viewer is introduced to a wide selection of criminal characters and becomes involved in a gang war triggered by the demand for an "honour" shooting to save face by gang boss Idei, played by the convincing Tatsuya Nakamura, who tells his minion to "get on with the shooting" and treat it like a dream... "In dreams you can kill and not get hurt ... Tokyo is one big dream" The gun as a motif throughout the film gives a strong focus on the finality of pulling the trigger rather than just spraying everybody in a blur of flashing muzzles and deep red, and there are several intense " will they or won't they " moments. Kirana Mano stands out as Chisato, a part time sex worker addicted to speed who comes across as a complex and deliberately contradictory person. However, it is the overall the style of the film : dingy back alleys, concrete industrial backdrops and claustrophobic camera shots emphasising the brutal relationships of the main players that is the real standout. This was often my experience of Tokyo at night when I lived there when out and about, in both places I went to and the type of characters encountered. To sum up, "Bullet Ballet" delivers an element of gritty realism to a believable storyline that makes sure not one round in the clip is wasted. Great punk-style movie-making.

After the amusing opening credits, playing with the title's two words, this takes an immediate dark and dangerous turn and doesn't stop till the end. The lovely Kirina Mano shines like some angelic figure amidst the grime, the violence and the mayhem. But even she has a very mean streak and it is clear that these are not the colourful, welcoming streets of Tokyo we love, these are the back alleys teeming with bored punk kids desperate to emulate or at least impress the raging yakuza. Shot in stark b/w, there is confusion as to quite what is going on at times but there is such a drive and confidence to the filming that there is no doubting that the director knows where the ride lead even if even some of the participants are unsure. Dirty, dynamic and disturbingly dark drama set in the underbelly of the backstreets of Shibuya(?) in the 1990s

A much more articulate Shinya has used his extremely visceral palette to produce a deeper film that passes over the gorehound's head and explores the scars of depression and self-destruction in ways that other film-makers have overlooked. From the beginning where Goda confronts his fiancee's death in a mirror while a cricket twitches under a dripping tap beneath him, to a deathwish game that the hoodlum girl Chisato plays later on in the subways, hooking her heels over the edge and delighting as the passing train throttle passes her, the imagery is amazing. Shot in intimate black and white, the graphic impact of its intense releases (There is a bit of animation on guns that's like a KMFDM video) hit you to hold you and keep you with the story until the end. At the screening I attended there were those who were disappointed that the violence lacked the kind of escapist punch that make other Hong Kong films so fun to watch, but I think Shinya was aiming for something different, and he succeeded. This is my favorite film of his and I definitely look forward to his next. For those trying to get an idea of what to expect, well it's the kind of surrealistic dreams that are often thought of by David Cronenberg and David Lynch. If you follow that path and walk with such minds than you should take a walk with Shinya Tsukamoto and see Bullet Ballet.