Tsukamoto's first film was in black and white. It set the stage for his visual style and various tricks he likes to employ to explore his themes.

With Bullet Ballet he returns to black and white photography to completely strip away any semblance of his style, to wipe the slate clean, and rebuild his visual language and how he can tell his stories.

This is one of the most beautiful and powerful films out there and I connected with it in such a deep way.

The best way I can think to dive into this film is to talk about another director, one of my all time favorites: Takashi Miike. If this was a Miike film, and it absolutely could be one of his earlier delinquent/yakuza pics, the main character would not be Goda, it would be Goto. Goto would be half Korean and a quarter Chinese and his story is about trying to shed his outsider status and become one with the society he lives within. He cannot conform and finds himself at odds between the world he belongs to and the world he wants. This is still the same movie, that is absolutely one of the themes present and is the storyline of Goto (except the mixed heritage part). That's what Miike's is obsessed by: outsiders torn between two worlds and the violent clash that occurs when those two worlds collide. Almost all of his films can be boiled down to that throughline.

Tsukamoto on the other hand has the same yet opposite obsession. His entry is that of the insider. The one who belongs and has been chosen as doing the right thing and living the right life. In Japanese society there is a strong urge to conform because of how strictly society views exceptions. But exceptions are everywhere, they are a natural part of life. Every person is different and has the right to live their life as they see fit to find happiness. You don't have to be a salaryman, a married man, and passive man. So what happens when the world crashes into your idealized life that is exactly as society has dictated to you? How can you possibly confront these deviations that have disrupted your life? The push and pull of society's right and nature's right is one rife with conflict. In Tokyo Fist it is the perceived emasculation of jealousy surround the idea of an unfaithful lover. No he has to man up and the violence inherent in unchecked masculinity will destroy everyone. In Bullet Ballet it's a suicide that acts as the catalyst.

How could this woman he loved, he knew for a decade, commit suicide? How did she fall into the life where she could even get a gun? She was into drugs too?? Goda's perception of life is shattered. So he chooses to dive headlong into the abyss for answer and gets in way over his head as the world gangster and crime surround him and penetrate every aspect of his existence. Those in the criminal life seek the normal life. Why would Goda be getting into this world when all I want to to get out?

This is the struggle that fills out the film.

Gone are the stop motion animations, the skipped frames, the haunting floating camera. Gone is the excess and implausibility used to heighten the story for maximum impact. But what Tsukamoto has found are superior shot composition and structure. This still feels like a Tsukamoto film but it looks like something entirely new. It's his most beautiful film so far and the emotional impact and resonance works powerfully on the viewer. You fall into the downward spiral with Goda and become attached to all of the main cast.

Chu Ishikawa's sonic improvement matches Tsukamoto's. That hard industrial edge is still present and still kicks ass but the traditional and melodic score piece are anything but traditional and stunning in composition and execution. I need this OST.

This simply has one of the most perfect endings in film. Im sure I say that a lot and I mean it every time.

I'll put this film up against any other. It can stand on its own. It can hold its own. How did this not light the film world on fire? I don't know. Maybe it did for a few months but I've never heard people speak on it before and people definitely aren't speaking of it now. Hopefully this box set will change that.

This isn't the Tetsuo Tsukamoto, this is something even bigger and more profound and powerful.