Fires on the Plain (2014)

In the final days of World War II, a bullied soldier suffering from tuberculosis makes his way through the Filipino jungle in the hope of reaching his evacuation point in time. On his journey he encounters local guerillas, hides from the American military, and discovers the frightening extent to which desperate, starving men will go in order to survive.

That's the premise of Ooka Shohei's 1951 novel Fires on the Plain, which formed the basis for Kon Ichikawa's 1959 film of the same name. While Ichikawa's film received a mixed response upon its original release it has since been re-evaluated as one of the best Japanese films ever made. It would be a foolhardy venture for any filmmaker to attempt adapting the novel again with such an acclaimed film with which to compete. Thankfully Shinya Tsukamoto was up to the challenge.

Tsukamoto is one of the shining lights of Japanese independent cinema. His films are all either self or privately funded. They usually have an experimental edge and a confronting rough-hewn quality to them. His debut feature Tetsuo: The Iron Man became an international cult hit - so much so that he's generally better known and appreciated outside of Japan than within it. Last year he finally achieved a life ambition: to adapt Shohei's novel, which he first read in high school, in an all-new film.

Bullet Ballet (1998)

Writer/director Shinya Tsukamoto made an enormous impact internationally with his low-budget 1989 tech-horror Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Shot in grainy black and white with a piercing industrial soundtrack, it rapidly became a cult hit around the world and attracted a fiercely loyal cult following. Tsukamoto's subsequent films never quite captured the widespread attention that his feature debut did - and that included two Tetsuo sequels - but he remains a provocative and fascinating filmmaker whose work I regularly admire.

Bullet Ballet, released in 1998, is something of a jump back for Tsukamoto in terms of visual aesthetic and storytelling style. After expanding his style with Hiruko the Goblin (1991) and Tokyo Fist (1995), here he reverts back to the grainy black and white visuals, the aggressive musical score and the shaky, frantic camera work that made Tetsuo such an arresting film. The results are spectacular: Tsukamoto keeps the very best elements of his first film but combines them with a more complex and nuanced sense of story and character. I think this is the best Tsukamoto film that I've seen so far.

Haze (2005)

A man wakes up in a dark, coffin-like space. He can barely move, but move he must if he wants to survive, because he's bleeding from an abdominal wound. He wakes up again pressed between two walls, his open mouth straining against a long metal pole. He has to stand on tip-toes to avoid getting stabbed in the feet by razor-sharp metal spikes. As he slowly works his way through this cramped, claustrophobic labyrinth, he encounters a mysterious woman and struggles to piece together the fragments of his own memory.

This is Haze, a 49-minute long short feature written and directed by Shinya Tsukamoto - who also stars as the film's hapless protagonist. I'm a big fan of Tsukamoto's strange, low-budget breed of Japanese thriller. He first wowed audiences with his frantic 1989 film Tetsuo: The Iron Man but has since impressed with a number of idosyncratic, disturbing and fetishistic thrillers including Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, Tokyo Fist, Nightmare Detective and A Snake of June. Haze is one of his best works: provocative, nightmarish and daring.