‘Tetsuo’ Director Tsukamoto Shinya on Staying Independent, War Films

Beloved independent filmmaker Tsukamoto Shinya gave a masterclass at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), speaking about the pivotal works of his career as well as his most recent film, the English-language feature “Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?”

Perhaps most famous overseas for his 1989 feature “Tetsuo: The Iron Man,” Tsukamoto spoke candidly about his preference for working outside the studio system as much as possible. Moderator Ichiyama Shozo, TIFF’s programming director, called “Tetsuo” a “shock,” not so much for its body horror as for the fact that a film of that quality could emerge from the Japanese independent film scene at the time.

Tsukamoto recalled shooting the film on 16mm, before the era of digital VFX.

“No CG. We had a little bit of tokusatsu [practical special effects] technology at the time but this didn’t use any of that, this used stuff which was thrown out on the street and we basically stuck it on [Taguchi Tomorowo]’s face,” the director said. Of the effect of Taguchi gliding through the streets, he said to “think of it as really rough stop motion.”

The film took about a year to make, Tsukamoto said, though “the time we spent with the crew was shorter, a lot of the time towards the end I was working alone – like the sparks flying off at the end [of the clip], that was something I worked on alone.”

The success of “Tetsuo,” he said, took him to film festivals overseas and led to his second feature, the horror film “Hiruko the Goblin,” now with a higher budget.

“‘Tetsuo’ was being shown at the small theaters but we were getting attention because of the audience which came to watch, and I got the offer to make the film [‘Hiruko’],” he said.

Asked by Ichiyama whether he felt more pressure making a larger-scale film, Tsukamoto said he mostly managed it, in part because of his time working in commercials.

Ichiyama pointed out that Tsukamoto has consistently produced his films independently over the years, as with “Bullet Ballet” and “Tokyo Fist.”

“I did receive offers [from studios] but I didn’t want to become a director for hire, I didn’t think that suited me, and there’s certain things you want to do as a filmmaker,” the director said. “You want to be able to play with the material to maintain that interest, that first impulse. Without that, because I’m not that strong-willed, I thought it would be very difficult to me. I think my impulse as a creator is stronger with my own material, which is why I went down that path.”

Tsukamoto said his 2014 war film “Fires on the Plain,” based on a novel by Ooka Shohei that Ichikawa Kon had also adapted in 1959, was made independently. It was shot partly in the Philippines, partly in Okinawa and the rest in Saitama Prefecture.

“Prior to this, although it was in the realm of indies, our crew had grown, and we had a wonderful system where we were able of course to pay the fees accordingly, and we did ‘Gemini’ with Sedic [International] and ‘[A] Snake of June,’ and ‘Nightmare Detective’ and ‘Tetsuo: The Bullet Man,’” Tsukamoto said. “Through this work my team at the company were always on the go and had grown but we were kind of at the point where we were at a standstill.”

“Fires on the Plain” was a film he “had always wanted to adapt,” he said. “[I] wanted to do this from my teens to my 20s to my 30s, I went to the Philippines to try [to] finance it in my 40s, and in my 50s.”

Determined to make the film, he went as far as trying self-distribution.

“The people involved, it was hard work for them so I wouldn’t wanna do it again but it’s something I wanted to do for a long time. I thought it was something I could do myself with SNS [social media],” he said. “In the beginning I was thinking of showing it in a small amount of theaters.”

He was eventually persuaded to show it in 80 cinemas, he said, starting with 40 and then expanding.

Short on time, the talk skipped ahead to “Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?,” Tsukamoto’s second English-language film after 2009’s “Tetsuo: The Bullet Man.” The film, which played in competition at Venice in September, follows Allen Nelson, a New Yorker who joins the Marines at 18 and is haunted by what he did in Vietnam. Rodney Hicks, Geoffrey Rush and Lily Franky are among the cast.

Tsukamoto said he came across the story while making “Fires on the Plain,” but COVID-19 and then the Hollywood actors’ strike caused delays long enough that he released “Shadow of Fire,” originally planned for after “Mr. Nelson,” first. Altogether, the process took around seven years.

After the abbreviated career talk, an audience Q&A delved a little more into Tsukamoto’s filmmaking philosophies and views on contemporary independent film.

Asked for advice for young filmmakers, he said that in his youth, “because we were shooting on 8mm and 16mm film and we wanted to make a theatrical film,” a lot of the budget went to film processing. With digital, he said, that money can now go elsewhere.

“Anything is a canvas now, [whether] it’s done by a grammar school student or Van Gogh,” he said, pointing to YouTube as a north star for what can be learned and accomplished without a budget.

Asked about ideas for upcoming work, Tsukamoto returned to “Mr. Nelson.”

“The theme of war wasn’t something that I was going to linger on this long, I was going to be happy just creating ‘Fires on the Plain,’” he said. “But it’s the state of the world which made me continue to focus on war.”

The question referred to an earlier interview in which he had spoken about having new ideas he wanted to explore. “I think I made that comment wanting to alleviate some of the darkness I was experiencing,” Tsukamoto said. “I don’t think I can pry myself away from it.”

Asked how he balances multiple roles behind the camera, Tsukamoto put it down partly to efficient communication, knowing exactly what to shoot, retake or cut, and to time management. But he said he also simply likes taking on those responsibilities.

“Filmmaking is an accumulation of everything I love,” he said. That, rather than saving money, is why he gets involved on so many levels, though there are practical benefits too.

“I studied art in high school and uni, and I love drawing. Once I became a filmmaker I stopped drawing but I’m using the same brainpower when coming up with composition and blocking,” he said. “It feels very close to drawing or painting to me.”