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Matsunaga Daishi’s Egoist is a love duet full of intimate gestures. “I hated my hometown so much, I fled it, at 18, for Tokyo,” confesses Kosuke (Suzuki Ryohei), in voiceover. “For me, clothes are armor.” Though the gay fashion magazine editor, who lost his mother at age 14, seems much more at home in the more socially liberal Tokyo, he still hides behind his sharp style and his money. That is, until he meets Ryuta (Miyazawa Hio), a fitness trainer to whom he feels an immediate bond. And through these two young men from decidedly different backgrounds, Matsunaga’s film considers how class, capitalism, and core wounds collide, infect, and also inspire the heart’s most tender desires.

It isn’t long after Kosuke starts training with Ryuta that the two become romantically linked. Theirs is a carnal connection that deepens and complicates as they learn more about each other. In some ways,...

The love of self and the love of others are deeply intertwined, according to everyone from ancient philosophers to “Drag Race” host Ru Paul. We must be anchored in a solid space of self-love in order to let someone else into our lives. On its surface, this is the key tenet of Daishi Matsunaga’s “Egoist” (ergo its title). But that sentiment serves instead to highlight how this maudlin Japanese drama about a gay man in his 30s coping with love and loss, rarely moves beyond the readymade platitudes that litter its well-meaning narrative.

Based on the late Makoto Takayama’s autobiographical novel of the same name, “Egoist” follows Saitô Kôsuke (Ryohei Suzuki), a magazine editor whose picture-perfect life includes an immaculately designed condo, a quick-paced job surrounded by fashion and photography, a closet full of beautiful designer clothes and a coterie of gay male friends with whom he handily gets along.

Renown for the celebrated “Tetsuo” films, Japanese auteur and cult favorite filmmaker Shin’ya Tsukamoto offers another bleak and harrowing tale with his effort ‘Kotoko.’ Reteaming with singer/songwriter/actress Cocco nearly a decade after their previous collaboration in ‘Vital,’ this new effort arrives as one of the director’s best films ever and offers plenty of engaging elements at its core.

The film screened at Five Flavours Asian Horror Night

Tormented by frightening visions, single mother Kotoko struggles to take care of herself and her newborn child, as she often sees hostile doubles of the people she meets. After her mental state deteriorates further to the point of frequently cutting herself with razors as a means of confirming that her body is still alive and hers, her baby is taken away and given to her sister to take care of it in the peaceful country home where she lives with her family.

Stars: Lily Franky, Tatsuya Nakamura, Yûko Nakamura, Dean Newcombe, Hiroshi Suzuki, Shinya Tsukamoto | Written and Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

It seems these days, when some world leaders seem to enjoy the thought of war, we need to be reminded just what it is. War is hell, there is no positive side, even for the winners. This is something that Shinya Tsukamoto shows in Fires on the Plain…

In the final states of World War 2, the occupying Japanese army are losing ground in the Philippines. Fighting against local resistance and the American Army a few of the soldiers try to make their escape, but all they find is a hostile territory where friendship means nothing and hope is none existent.

At the start of the film we are introduced to an unnamed soldier (Shinya Tsukamoto) who is suffering from TB. Given no hope, he finds himself wandering through a desolate but beautiful landscape.

Shinya Tsukamoto's 'Tetsuo' sci-fi action film opens On Demand on Jan 19, Jan 21 in theaters. Check out the trailer for the film written by Tsukamoto (Nightmare Detective) alongside Hisakatsu Kuroki which stars Eric Bossick Akiko Monô, Yûko Nakamura, Stephen Sarrazin, Tiger Charlie Gerhardt, Prakhar Jain and Tsukamoto. The sci-fi action film follows calm office worker Anthony, son of an American father and a Japanese mother, lives in Tokyo with his wife Yuriko and their little son Tom. Since Anthony's mother died of cancer, his scientist father has been overly fearful for their health and rigidly subjects Anthony and Tom to monthly physicals...

Shinya Tsukamoto's 'Tetsuo' sci-fi action film opens On Demand on Jan 19, Jan 21 in theaters. Check out the trailer for the film written by Tsukamoto (Nightmare Detective) alongside Hisakatsu Kuroki which stars Eric Bossick Akiko Monô, Yûko Nakamura, Stephen Sarrazin, Tiger Charlie Gerhardt, Prakhar Jain and Tsukamoto. The sci-fi action film follows calm office worker Anthony, son of an American father and a Japanese mother, lives in Tokyo with his wife Yuriko and their little son Tom. Since Anthony's mother died of cancer, his scientist father has been overly fearful for their health and rigidly subjects Anthony and Tom to monthly physicals...

Tetsuo, the Iron Man is one of the most gleefully insane films I’ve seen. The director is back with his latest film and our own Raffi Asdourian quite liked Shinya Tsukamoto‘s new entry into his Tetsuo series when he saw at Tribeca. He even had a chance to sit down with the director himself and talk about the project. You can read his review and interview here. The film is now gearing up for a limited release via IFC this month and we have the first domestic trailer. Chud provides it below for the film that stars Eric Bossick, Akiko Monô, Yûko Nakamura, and Stephen Sarrazin. It also features new music from Trent Reznor, who gave us one of the best scores of the year.

Tetsuo: The Bullet Man hits the IFC Center in NYC on Friday, January 21st and on VOD on the 19th.

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