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If you are a film fan and have been following this homepage, you are undoubtedly familiar with the works of Japanese auteur Shinya Tsukamoto. While it draws from several inspirations such as the Punk movement or even the works of classic painters, Tsukamoto never fails to be unique, even in his works which rarely ever are mentioned such as the “Nightmare Detective”-series or “Kotoko“. The director himself has often referred to his features as experiences which often make the viewer feel uncomfortable and/or disgusted. Whether you like his body of work or not, his films leave a lasting impression on the viewer and we are going to take a look at some of the elements that make it unique while also hopefully drawing attention to his some of his major works and those which sometimes fall under the radar.

False Idols and heroes

If there is one thing...

To celebrate the release of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Shadow of Fire on Blu-Ray and Digital from 30th September, we are giving away 3 Blu-Rays to lucky winners!

Shadow Of Fire Is The latest film from Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and winner of the Netpac Award at the 80th Venice Film Festival.

Part of his War trilogy, which includes Fires On the Plain and Killing, Shinya Tsukamoto’s latest examines the desperate lives of Japanese citizens in the immediate post–World War II period through the story of a child dealing with unimaginable adversity.

Bonus Features:

• Tom Mes feature audio commentary

• “The Reality Of Violence” Video Essay by Robert Edwards

• Shinya Tsukamoto and author Kota Ishii talk event

• Director and cast cinema stage greetings

• Trailer

• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

• Region B

Shadow Of Fire is out on Blu-Ray & Digital 30th September

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The...

As one of the few (I don't want to say one of the last) Japanese filmmakers who can still produce movies with tension, pointed comments and a no-punches-pulled cinematic approach, every new movie Shinya Tsukamoto comes up with is a must-watch. In “Shadow of Fire”, he continues his anti-war message that also appeared in “Fires on the Plain” and “Killing”, this time focusing on the chaos that ensued in Japan just after the ending of World War 2.

Shadow of Fire is screening at Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme

In an area adjacent to a black market, a young woman whose family was lost during the war is selling her body to make a living in a Japanese pub diner that barely survived the bombings. One day, a young soldier appears as a customer, and the woman asks him to stay the night, kickstarting a series of his visits, every night,...

Shinya Tsukamoto’s Shadow of Fire begins as a troubling but measured film, but about a half-hour in something happens that shatters its quietude. Suddenly, a man who to this point has been impotent and deferential throws a small boy out a window and begins beating a woman. From the director best-known for Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and whose other films are often similarly stylish and sexually violent, that might not sound like much, but it is precisely the restraint of Shadow of Fire that makes the violence one of the more harrowing moments in Tsukamoto’s growing oeuvre.

Tsukamoto used to make movies at a swift pace: from his 1989 debut Tetsuo to 2011’s Kotoko, a dozen films. Since then, Shadow of Fire is just his third, all three of which are focused in some way on war, and each has taken longer to arrive than the one before. Whether...

Ning Hao’s The Movie Emperor will screen as the opening film of Macau’s Asia-Europe Young Cinema Film Festival, which is holding its inaugural edition from January 5-11. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail, recently a hit in India, will screen as the closing film.

The event has two major sections – a programme of masterclasses and screenings aimed at young directors, film students and local audiences, and a Works-in-Progress (WiP) Lab, which will be attended by international sales agents, distributors and festival programmers.

The masterclasses will be held by leading international filmmakers including several from the Chinese-speaking world – Ning Hao, Li Dongmei, Johnnie To, Yon Fan and Lee Hong-chi – along with Japanese filmmakers Ryosuke Hamaguchi and Shinya Tsukamoto, Russia’s Aleksey German Jr, Italy’s Gabriel Menetti, India’s Anurag Kashyap, Lav Diaz from the Philippines and Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi.

China Film Directors Association is actively involved in...

Having run for over twenty years, the UK’s largest festival of Japanese cinema, the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme (JFTFP24), returns with its biggest showcase ever for 2024.

Memories play a powerful role in the mind. Shaped fluidly by individuals or time, they have been a source of inspiration for many filmmakers, fuelling their creativity to craft colourful stories. Under the theme ‘Unforgettable: Memories, Times and Reflections in Japanese Cinema’ the JFTFP24 delves into Japanese cinema to explore how memories are employed in the cinematic voices of Japanese filmmakers, from films where memories are a focal point to works where they play a subliminal role in driving or affecting people’s minds and behaviour. With an incredibly diverse range of films all based on memories, time, and reflections, this year’s programme is set to provide UK audiences with memorable stories and unforgettable moments.

Under this theme the packed programme...

A film noir that’s so vintage it comes wrapped in crackling celluloid and old cassette tapes, Only the River Flows (He Biande Cuo Wu) follows one obsessive detective’s long and elusive hunt for a serial killer in 1990s provincial China, chronicling the effect it has on a small town with plenty of secrets lurking beneath the surface.

Written and directed by Shujun Wei (Striding into the Wind), the movie is less a nail-biting thriller than a puzzle-like homage to the noir genre itself, with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville, Chinatown and Memories of Murder. But even more so, it’s a portrait of Chinese society before the recent economic boom and in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests, at a time when citizens lead repressed lives of quiet desperation.

A few of those lives unravel at the hands of Ma Zhe (Yilong Zhu), the chief detective in his town’s criminal investigation unit,...

Novelist Shohei Ooka would captivate readers with his anti-war novel “Fires on the Plain,” published in 1951. Inspired by his personal experiences from being drafted as a soldier, Ooka's chilling story depicts the gruesome violence and insanity that occurred during the Imperial Japanese Army's last stand in the Philippines on the island of Leyte during World War II. The award-winning book was praised for its gripping storytelling and raw examination of the horrors of war. With the success of the title, there were talks for a film adaptation for quite a while. Eventually, the nightmarish narrative would be superbly adapted for cinemas with Kon Ichikawa's “Fires on the Plain.”

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

Daiei Film greenlighted the project, and the studio's president, Masaichi Nagata, would produce it. Kon Ichikawa would direct, and his wife, Natto Wada, would write the screenplay. There was initial...

Onibaba

Blu ray

Criterion

1964/ 2.39:1/ 102 Minutes

Starring Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura

Directed by Kaneto Shindô

Kaneto Shindô’s Onibaba is a campfire tale not for the faint of heart. The director was just a child when he first heard the Buddhist fable about a bewitched matriarch, told to him by his own mother in lieu of a bedtime story. That evening, the child’s perception of the world, and the women in it, took on a new dimension. The movie Shindô made from those memories is unclassifiable—a Bergmanesque allegory filmed in a graceful yet spartan style with a healthy dose of Grand Guignol to mitigate its pretensions. Produced in 1964, the film is set in the medieval era just as civil war has leveled Kyoto, sending the populace scurrying to the hinterlands.

Shindô wrote the screenplay and he leaves it to one of his characters, a deserter named Hachi, to...

While Western cinema all too often equates film noir with retro pastiche and period fare, Chinese filmmakers continue to sustain the genre in bracingly contemporary, socially relevant ways — often sneaking a wealth of political and economic commentary past censors and straight into their sleek underworld narratives. Zhang Ji’s remarkable debut feature, “Fire on the Plain,” follows in this rich tradition: On the surface, it’s a grand, expansive yarn meshing cool policier with . A collective sense of yearning for other lives and other options runs through the well-oiled mechanics of the plot, elevating this San Sebastian competition standout from merely compelling to truly stirring.

Former cinematographer Zhang is best known for his work on Zhang Bingjian’s “North by Northeast,” and this is about as fully formed as first features come — matching the technical finesse you might expect, given his background, to real storytelling brio. If “Fire on the Plain...

The Souvenir: Part II Cannes, Day 3: early in the festival, late in the night. I began my first dispatch wondering what the films here would have to say about the past two years, and already a few seem to raise questions that we’ve all been forced to wrestle with in these pandemic times. What is it that makes up a community? What does it mean to exist without one? In Nadav Lapid’s incendiary Ahed’s Knee, screening in the official competition, the dilemmas take place on a national scale. Avshalom Pollak plays Y, a Tel Aviv director in his forties who travels to a remote village in Israel’s Arava region for a screening of his latest work. There, he’s greeted by Yahalom (Nur Fibak), a young officer for the Ministry of Culture who’s there to make sure the Q&a will only touch upon a list of “sanctioned” topics.

With Cannes Film Festival now just around the corner, updates are coming in for our most-anticipated cinematic event of the year. The Un Certain Regard––which has now confirmed its full jury with Andréa Arnold (President), Mounia Meddour, Elsa Zylberstein, Daniel Burman, and Michael Covino––has unveiled its opening night film.

Arthur Harari’s Onoda – 10 000 Nights In The Jungle will premiere on the first night of the festival. Shot in Japanese, this international coproduction tells the story of the soldier Hiroo Onoda that was sent to an island in the Philippines in 1944, to fight against the American offensive. As Japan surrenders, Onoda ignores it, trained to survive at all costs in the jungle, he keeps his war going. He will take 10 000 days to capitulate, refusing to believe the end of the Second World War.

As the Cannes synopsis reads, “Between Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain, Josef von Sternberg...

French filmmaker Arthur Harari’s “Onoda – 10 000 Nights In The Jungle” will open the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes’ Official Selection.

The film tells the story of soldier Hiroo Onoda who was sent to an island in the Philippines in 1944 to fight against the American forces. As Japan surrenders, Onoda ignores it, and, as he is trained to survive at all costs in the jungle, he keeps his war going. He will take 10,000 days to capitulate, refusing to believe the end of WWII.

The cast includes Endō Yūya, Tsuda Kanji, Matsuura Yūya, Chiba Tetsuya, Katō Shinsuke, Inowaki Kai and Ogata Issei.

“Between Kon Ichikawa’s ‘Fires on the Plain,’ Josef von Sternberg’s ‘Anatahan’ and ‘They Were Expendable’ of John Ford, with lighting by Tom Harari, the director’s brother, ‘Onoda – 10 000 Nights In The Jungle’ is a staggering internal odyssey, an intimate and universal view of the world and the history,...

It is the second film by French director Arthur Harari.

French director Arthur Harari’s second feature Onoda - 10 000 Nights In The Jungle has been revealed as the opening film of Un Certain Regard at Cannes next month.

This brings the number of films due to be showcased in the section to 20.

The film follows real-life Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda who was sent to an island in the Philippines in 1944, to fight against the US offensive. When Japan surrendered, Onoda, who has been trained to survive in the jungle, refused to capitulate and kept his war going. It took 10 000 days...

New York, NY –Japan Society and the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan (Aca), in collaboration with the Visual Industry Promotion Organization (Vipo), announce the inaugural Aca Cinema Project online film series 21st Century Japan: Films from 2001-2020, streaming nationwide on Japan Society’s Virtual Cinema from February 5-25, 2021.

As Japan’s film industry enters its third decade in the new millennium, this 30-film online series takes a look back at the last 20 years of Japanese cinema to celebrate some of the most remarkable narrative fiction films and filmmakers that define the era. Covering a wide range of production styles and genres—from small budget independent debuts to festival favorites and award-winning major studio releases—this diverse slate of feature and short films offers a guided tour of modern Japanese cinema, including special spotlights dedicated to the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and a selection of breakout films by up-and-coming filmmakers.

Shinya Tsukamoto's Vital and A Snake of June are playing on Mubi in the United States in the double bill The Human Extremes of Shinya Tsukamoto.Top: A Snake of June. Above: Vital. Shinya Tsukamoto has explored the full spectrum of human darkness over his four decades of filmmaking, including the raw nihilism of 1989’s Tetsuo: Iron Man, the desperate grief of 1998’s Bullet Ballet, and the paralyzing pacifism of 2018’s Killing, just to name a few select examples. And yet the director is usually only associated with the violence and surrealism of the earlier films, particularly edgelord employee pick Tetsuo. What’s often overlooked by fans is that these earlier films stem from the same fascinations foregrounded in his later, more restrained works like Killing (2018) and Fires on the Plain (2014): abject corporeality amid environments molding us as much as we exist in them, and ontological explorations of breaking through those constraints.

By Nicholas Poly

In this article I’m going to take a peek on a double bill. The first title is Kon Ichikawa’s intriguing mystery drama ‘The Inugami Family’ aka ‘The Inugamis’, which was released back in 1976. The second one is Masato Harada’s ‘Inugami’ which was released 25 years later, in 2001.

The interesting fact is the inugami ‘effect’ itself, in both films, which is also the obvious link between the two titles. It must be stressed though, that the theme is presented from a completely different angle in each one of these features. This means that there is no apparent ‘technical’ or ‘artistic’ relation between the two films. Harada’s film is nor a remake neither some kind of ‘hommage’ on Ichikawa’s title. Each one of the films forms a cinematic universe of its own, despite the dramatic overtones and symbolisms that reflect in both features.

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“The Burmese Harp” (1956), “Fires on the Plain” (1959), “An Actor’s Revenge” (1963). Those are only a few of the internationally critically acclaimed feature films of Japanese director Kon Ichikawa. His movies depict wide-ranging topics of Japan’s society in the twentieth century and represent a versatile filmmaker that often falls short in comparison to other masters like Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu or Kenji Mizoguchi.

“Youth” is screening at Japan Society

Primarily known for his fictional works, Ichikawa also produced a handful of documentaries, that had a striking impact especially in the field of sports documentary. Most significant are “Tokyo Olympiad” (1965), “Visions of Eight” (1973), and “Youth” (1968). Ichikawa uses the same approach for all of these documentaries. Focusing on the event itself and the athlete’s endurance during the competition, Ichikawa follows a melodramatic concept of pain and glory.

Three years after the monumental “Tokyo Olympiad” about the Tokyo Olympic Games, the director...

Can (intense) violence be used to communicate a message about antiviolence? If Shinya Tsukamoto begun giving a reply to this question with “Fires on the Plain”, this time, he gives a definite one, and in the most stunning matter.

“Killing” is screening at Art Film Fest Košice

After 250 years of peace, the idle samurais hear again the bells of war in the mid 19th century coming from Edo, as the “negotiations” with the Americans start taking place. Mokunoshin Tsuzuki is another masterless samurai, who earns his living by working in the rice paddies of an isolated farm, while honing his skills by sparring with the family’s son, Ichisuke, who dreams of becoming a samurai, despite the fact the he was born a peasant. At the same time, the beginning of a subtle romance seems to take place between Tsuzuki and Yu, the family’s daughter despite the fact that...

With “Killing”, Tsukamoto returns to the question of the meaning of death and the question of the true value of life. While in “Fires on the Plain”, Tsukamoto’s previous narrative, he approached these questions in a more macroscopic and indirect fashion, “Killing” is set to provide a more subjective perspective on these questions.

“Killing” is screening at the

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019

Even though Mokunoshin Tsuzuki (Sousuke Ikematsu), one of the many wandering ronin the long-lasting peace in the 19th century created, is on his way to Edo to prove his worth, he finds himself aiding a local farming community in return for food and lodging. Besides slogging in rice paddies, Mokunoshin maintains his swordsmanship skills, by regularly sparring with Ichisuke (Ryusei Maeda), the son of the family who lodges him.

While Yu (Yu Aoi), Ichisuke’s sister, silently condemns the sparring and the influence it has on her brother,...

Based on the novel Nobi by Natto Wada, the original, 1959 film, instigated much controversy in the west, for its grotesqueness and the fact that it portrayed Japanese soldiers as victims. In Japan, however, it was immediately hailed for its anti-war message and artfulness, winning a number of awards in local festivals, before Locarno also netted it the Golden Sail for Best Film in 1961. However, through the years, the film was recognized globally, and is currently considered a masterpiece. Shinya Tsukamoto presents a low-budget (the film was produced through his own company Kaijyu theater), gorier take on the story of a Japanese soldier trying to survive during the last days of the war, as the Imperial Army retreats in disorderly fashion.

The soldier’s name is Tamura, a low-level soldier who suffers from TB, and is kicked out by both his commanding officer and the doctor in charge of the field hospital,...

Can (intense) violence be used to communicate a message about antiviolence? If Shinya Tsukamoto begun giving a reply to this question with “Fires on the Plain”, this time, he gives a definite one, and in the most stunning matter.

Killing is screening at Five Flavours Festival

After 250 years of peace, the idle samurais hear again the bells of war in the mid 19th century coming from Edo, as the “negotiations” with the Americans start taking place. Mokunoshin Tsuzuki is another masterless samurai, who earns his living by working in the rice paddies of an isolated farm, while honing his skills by sparring with the family’s son, Ichisuke, who dreams of becoming a samurai, despite the fact the he was born a peasant. At the same time, the beginning of a subtle romance seems to take place between Tsuzuki and Yu, the family’s daughter despite the fact that the...

Based on the novel Nobi by Natto Wada, the original, 1959 film, instigated much controversy in the west, for its grotesqueness and the fact that it portrayed Japanese soldiers as victims. In Japan, however, it was immediately hailed for its anti-war message and artfulness, winning a number of awards in local festivals, before Locarno also netted it the Golden Sail for Best Film in 1961. However, through the years, the film was recognized globally, and is currently considered a masterpiece. Shinya Tsukamoto presents a low-budget (the film was produced through his own company Kaijyu theater), gorier take on the story of a Japanese soldier trying to survive during the last days of the war, as the Imperial Army retreats in disorderly fashion.

The soldier’s name is Tamura, a low-level soldier who suffers from TB, and is kicked out by both his commanding officer and the doctor in charge of the field hospital,...

A young masterless samurai faces a crisis of confidence when he is called upon to defend a family of farmers from a marauding gang in Shinya Tsukamoto’s small scale samurai drama. Killing is the actor-writer-director’s first film since 2014’s remake of Fires on the Plain, and shares a number of stylistic similarities. Young samurai Mokunoshin (Sosuke Itematsu) has been living a quiet and peaceful life, enjoying the hospitality of a peasant family, spending his days training with their adolescent son (Ryusei Maeda). The boy's sister, Yu (Yu Aoi), is developing strong feelings for the young warrior, and hopes he will forgo his desire to join the civil war and perhaps settle down with her. But when master swordsman Sawamura (Tsukamoto), wanders into town,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Internationally acclaimed Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto (“Fires on the Plain” “Tetsuo The Iron Man” “Kotoko”) has completed production on his most recent project “Killing”. The film was produced by Tsukamoto’s “Kaiju Theater” and he serves as director, scriptwriter, cinematographer, and editor on the project.

After about 250 years of peace in Japan, samurai warriors in the mid-19th century were impoverished. Consequently, many left their masters to become wandering ronin.

Mokunoshin Tsuzuki is one such samurai. To maintain his swordsmanship skills, Mokunoshin spars daily with Ichisuke, a farmer’s son. Ichisuke’s sister Yu (Yu Aoi “Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers“, “Tokyo Ghoul) watches them train with a hint of disapproval although there’s an unspoken attraction between her and Mokunoshin. While farm life is peaceful, there is monumental turmoil in Japan. The Us Navy has sent Commodore Perry to Japan to insist that it trades with them. This in turn causes civil unrest.

Japanese studio and distributor, Nikkatsu has acquired world sales rights for “Killing,” a period drama film by cult favorite Shinya Tsukamoto, company sources have confirmed.

The film, previously known as “Killing Zan,” has been selected to appear in competition at next month’s Venice festival. Tsukamoto has been invited to the festival four times before, most recently in 2014 for his WWII film “Fires on the Plain.”

As previously announced, the film stars Sosuke Ikematsu (“Shoplifters”) as a masterless samurai in mid-19th century Japan. Yu Aoi (“Birds Without Names”) co-stars as a peasant girl from the same farming village as the hero.

Tsukamoto serves as director, scriptwriter, cameraman and editor. Tsukamoto’s company Kaiju Theater produced the film. Shin Nippon Eigasha will release “Killing” in Japan on Nov. 24.

Tsukamoto is best known for his genre films, with his first “Tetsuo” in 1991. “Killing” is his first period piece. He has often...

Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto, who has acquired international cult status for his genre films, has unveiled plans for his first period drama.

Titled “Zan,” the film stars Sosuke Ikematsu as a ronin (masterless samurai) trying to survive the turbulence of mid-19th Century Japan, when the country was making an often-violent transition from feudalism to the modern world. Co-star Yu Aoi plays a peasant girl from the same farming village as the hero, on the outskirts of Edo (old Tokyo). Stars with long lists of credits in both indie and commercial films, Ikematsu and Aoi are both working with Tsukamoto for the first time.

As usual, Tsukamoto serves as director, scriptwriter, cameraman and editor. Also, his company Kaiju Theater produced the film. A theatrical release in Japan is set for November 24, with the distributor yet to be announced.

One likely destination for “Zan” is Venice: Tsukamoto has been invited to the festival four times,...

An Actor’s Revenge

Blu ray

Criterion

1963 / Color / 2.39:1 / 113 Min. / Street Date February 20, 2018

Starring Kazuo Hasegawa

Cinematography by Setsuo Kobayashi

Written by Daisuke Itô, Teinosuke Kinugasa

Edited by Shigeo Nishida

Directed by Kon Ichikawa

From Twelfth Night to Homicidal, casting calls for cross-dressers are a Hollywood tradition. The stories are alike in their differences; Katherine Hepburn was dodging the cops, Jack Lemmon was fleeing the mob, Dustin Hoffman was just an actor begging for work. Yukitarō, the enigmatic hero of An Actor’s Revenge, is gainfully employed but his motives are far more complicated than Hoffman’s needy thespian.

The story of a female impersonator’s vengeful killing spree, Kon Ichikawa’s 1963 film boasts a plot line John Waters would surely appreciate. But where Waters revels in the high comedy of lowlifes, Ichakawa’s movie is a ravishing melodrama set in the elevated atmosphere of death-dealing samurai, 19th century Kabuki...

When you see Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, which opened in a limited run and will go wide this weekend, you will undoubtedly be bowled over by the sheer imagination and technical chops on display. You will thrill to the extraordinary stop-motion animation – the director's first return to the form since his 2009 near-masterpiece Fantastic Mr. Fox – which not only makes sure each strand of fur seems tactile but lets you see the soul behind its canine characters' eyes. You may shudder at the way the movie portrays a futuristic dystopia in which,...

Seemingly for as long as the medium has been around, film has consistently been in conversation with and influenced by its elder sibling, theater. Be it the rather constant flood of screen adaptations of famous plays and musicals, or the actual aesthetic back and forth between the two mediums, film and theater are two vastly different outlets for artists to practice their craft within, while working vastly different muscles. However, when films attempt to blur the lines between these two worlds, some true beauty and greatness can arise. And therein lies Kon Ichikawa’s An Actor’s Revenge.

Set within the world of kabuki theater of the nineteenth century, Ichikawa’s film tells the story Yukinojo (Kazuo Hasegawa), a man raised since age seven in the arts not only of theater (he is known as an onnagata, or a male actor cast in female positions) but also deadly martial arts.

Based on the novel Nobi by Natto Wada, the original, 1959 film, instigated much controversy in the west, for its grotesqueness and the fact that it portrayed Japanese soldiers as victims. In Japan, however, it was immediately hailed for its anti-war message and artfulness, winning a number of awards in local festivals, before Locarno also netted it the Golden Sail for Best Film in 1961. However, through the years, the film was recognized globally, and is currently considered a masterpiece. Shinya Tsukamoto presents a low-budget (the film was produced through his own company Kaijyu theater), gorier take on the story of a Japanese soldier trying to survive during the last days of the war, as the Imperial Army retreats in disorderly fashion.

Third Window Films will release the film in a dual format (dvd/bluray) on June 12th.

The soldier’s name is Tamura, a low-level soldier who suffers from TB, and...

Fires on the Plain (Nobi) by Shin'ya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo) has adapted Shohei Ooka renowned anti-war novel, as Kon Ichikawa did in 1959. The new film screened in competition in Venice but arrives empty-handed in Toronto. It's fared better with the critics than with the juries, so we're gathering reviews—Jason Anderson, writing for Cinema Scope, finds that "the horrifying blunt force and almost relentless repugnancy of Tsukamoto’s effort prove to be the film’s greatest (if goriest) virtues"—and we have two clips. » - David Hudson...

Fires on the Plain (Nobi) by Shin'ya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo) has adapted Shohei Ooka renowned anti-war novel, as Kon Ichikawa did in 1959. The new film screened in competition in Venice but arrives empty-handed in Toronto. It's fared better with the critics than with the juries, so we're gathering reviews—Jason Anderson, writing for Cinema Scope, finds that "the horrifying blunt force and almost relentless repugnancy of Tsukamoto’s effort prove to be the film’s greatest (if goriest) virtues"—and we have two clips. » - David Hudson...

★★★★☆A tubercular nightmare vision of war in all its bloody ferocity, Tetsuo (1989) director Shin'ya Tsukamoto's Fires on the Plain (2014) stormed into competition at Venice with a loud and frankly mad rush to seize its objective, regardless of the cost. Shot through with the same élan that saw steam punk body horror Tetsuo grind itself a cult niche, Tsukamoto adapts Shohei Ooka's novel Nobi - already filmed in 1959 by Kon Ichikawa - into a fever dream of defeat, cannibalism and madness. The war is going badly for Japan and Private Tamura (Tsukamoto himself) is with his ragged unit in the jungles of the Philippines, sick with TB and unable to be of much use to anyone as the Imperial Japanese Army prepare to retreat.