Oh, my. I must confess that I did not see this coming. As is the case with all things Shinya Tsukamoto, I have been anxiously awaiting any new or information from his upcoming Bullet Man from the day I first heard of it. And like all things Tsukamoto, the director has been more than content to keep things close to the chest and make people wait until he was good and ready to show any materials from the picture. This is normal behavior for the Japanese auteur. What is unusual, however, is for the man to engage in a game of bait and switch and so I never imagined that Bullet Man could actually be a shadow project with a deliberately misleading title - I'd always figured that if it had any connection to Tsukamoto's earlier work it would be to Bullet Ballet - desgined to draw attention away from the fact that this is the twentieth anniversary of his arrival on the scene with the iconic Testuo: The Iron Man.
Yes, you've got it right. Bullet Man does not actually exist. What does, however, is The Tetsuo Project - the third installment in Tsukamoto's series of films about man/machine hybrids and the first English language film of his career. Screen Daily broke the news and while it's still light on detail the film will be present in the Cannes Marche Du Film so expect to be seeing more about it in these pages soon.
Amazing!!! I wonder if this'll be his orginal "Flying Tetsuo" idea, or something else entirely?
Whohoo ! ! ! Groovy !
They should try to find a cooler sounding title though ... I mean ... "The Tetsuo Project" !? ... after "Tetsuo : The Iron Man" and "Tetsuo II : Body Hammer" ... I expect something with more bite and impact ...
Wow!!! this is grrrreat news!!
Viva Tetsuo!!
OMGOMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG Exciting!!!!! Shared with Horror In The Hammer...they will be stocked
Consider my lying on the floor, fallen of the chair.
Very exciting! I guess it would be okay to purchase the UK Tartan Body Hammer, since there is no US version forthcoming. I haven't seen Tetsuo 2 in 12 years!
Body Hammer is actually the only Tsukamoto film I haven't seen ... should probably correct that.
Ah sweet VHS Days.... GenX video in Waterloo had a Tsukamoto section which at the time pretty much consisted of Tetsuo and Tetsuo 2.
So this is what he's using the money he made from making those sell-outish NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE flicks on... Could be pretty great but it worries me that he's shooting this in English. The two times Takashi Miike tried to do that lead to great looking films that I can't rewatch thanks to audio that is about as pleasant to my hearing as rabid rodents sodomizing my eardrums. On the other hand, unlike Miike, Tsukamoto speaks decent English so he may be able to direct actors better in that language. But if he will still use Japanese actors who have no idea what the dialogue means and who just learn their lines phonetically this could be equally catastrophic. There was a rumor a few years ago that Quentin Tarantino would co-direct TETSUO 3 with Tsukamoto. I'm also worried that this will lead to Tarantino at least having an acting role in the movie. In that case, he will easily manage to be worse than the phonetically acting Japanese cast, as proven by his work in Miike's DJANGO.
outstanding news. by far my favorite working director. 09 is shaping up quite nicely with this, a pair of Refn projects, the Bellucci-Marceau starrer by In My Skin's De Van, new ones from Gaspar Noe,Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, van trier, bornedal...
yes omg yes
In regards to CANNES in 2009, one of the best 'twitch-type' line-ups in many years. Wish I was there.
holy hell. this is best news ive heard all year. its great to see tsukamoto make a return to his auteuristic style that seemingly ended with vital.
Caterpillar: I am worried about those issues too. It would be odd enough to watch a film by Tsukamoto in English (particularly another sequel for Tetsuo), but to have Tarantino on screen as well would be too for me. All the same, if he's in it or not, I am VERY excited about this news. I hope it's a return to form from the director, since the last couple films have been kind-of antispetic and I don't know, just bland all around.
Gold I tells'ya GOLD! Now all we need here in North America is to have a distributor pick this up AND re-release Body Hammer and finally release Haze
News of the year, people.
What can i say? Holy fucking shit, yes please! Can't wait to see this.
According to Screen Daily (http://www.screendaily.com/asmik-ace-unwraps-third-tetsuo-film/5000812.article):
"The project started life when Quentin Tarantino asked Tsukamoto to write a new English-language version of Tetsuo, about a man mutating into a metallic killing machine, set in the US. However, the project was never produced as Tsukamoto wasn’t sure the concept would translate to America, and he decided to take the story back to Tokyo instead."
In other words, it looks like we don't have to worry about a meddling Tarantino, at least.
drill-penis GO !
best news ever, until i read the english-language part. i'm still looking forward to this, but i am worried.
"Tetsuo II: Body Hammer" was the first Tsukamoto I saw. The BBC broadcast it during a censorship theme-night, where they introduced, discussed, and finally showed a lot of movie which had been banned from video distribution.
Loved it. I can't wait to see a third "Tetsuo" and am very curious what Shinya Tsukamoto will do with the look of the film. At first I almost dreaded the idea of him going the glossy and cgi-filled route (I really dig the stop-motion effects in II), but the more I think about it the more it would be a logical extension of Tsukamoto's style.
It would put as much stylistic distance between II and III as between I and II.
Great news! The original Tetsuo was such a bizarre experience. I never saw part 2 but I heard it wasn't that great anyway. I Can't wait to see what he does with this.
Fantastic!
Positive = No Tarantino (?)
Negative = In English (?)
Hope Tsukamoto pulls it off!