I've been a fan of Tetsuo: The Iron Man since the 90s, so it's weird that I've taken so long to start catching up on some of Tsukamoto's other movies.
Hiruko the Goblin
A misleading title since yokai has been translated as goblin. The actual monster in this movie is basically the head spider from The Thing. As one of the few studio movies that Tsukamoto has made, it looks oddly clean and conventional compared to his independent movies. There's some uncharacteristically painterly cinematography on display in places, but mixed in with some handheld camera work that looks more Sam-Raimi-esque than Tsukamoto's usual frenetic style.
The horror-comedy plot is also more conventional than I expected, though it's fairly entertaining. Worth watching once, but not one I'd want to revisit.
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
"You don't want me inside you. You don't know what I'll do."
The third Tetsuo was originally going to be produced by Quentin Tarantino and intended for a US audience. That side of things fell through, but for some reason this still ended up being a very Americanised take on Tetsuo's ironpunk body-horror nightmares. More specifically, it's a warped, overblown, clunky, borderline-parody of what a movie aimed at an American audience should be. Where the original was surreal and abstract, The Bullet Man is painfully literal, going to great lengths to explain what is happening and why in lengthy, dry scenes of exposition delivered by English-speaking actors who have that random-guy-dragged-in-off-the-street cadence to them.
It also suffers from being made in the early digital camera era, when everything coming out of Japan looked like a home movie. The action scenes use the most exaggerated shaky cam I've ever seen (the Bourne movies look practically locked on a tripod by comparison), to the point where it's almost impossible to see what's happening. A few memorable moments aside, this is a major step down from the previous Tetsuo movies.
Kotoko
The most thematically challenging movie I've seen from Tsukamoto, this depicts a single mother struggling to raise her child while being tormented by crippling psychosis. A Beautiful Mind delved into the protagonist's hallucinations and delusions, but sometimes stepped back to a more objective view so the viewer could distinguish reality from hallucination. Kotoko offers no such comfort, keeping us locked inside her tormented viewpoint from start to finish, never certain what is real. The cheap digital camera look is on display here too, but this time it works with the story to lend it a harrowing docudrama air.
Some film-makers spend their whole career trying to tell one story, and it's interesting to see the structural parallels between Kotoko, Tetsuo, and A Snake of June. All of these stories see someone trying to lead a normal life, only to be stalked by a stranger who pushes them to awaken to an opposite, often self-destructive way of being, inevitably with disastrous consequences. Tetsuo depicts this as metal corrupting first the body, the mind, and finally the world. A Snake of June (and Tetsuo again) depicts it as a sexual awakening clashing against a disease that threatens to overwhelm the protagonist's body.
Kotoko flips the script in some ways, having the protagonist begin deep within disastrous circumstances, while the stalker seeks to help her back to reality, albeit through equally disruptive means. It's interesting that Tsukamoto always casts himself as the stalker in these stories.
), but yeah I liked the first one more too. The book remains my favourite from my school days so the movies did have a lot to live up to but I was reassured with them being in Villeneuve's hands. Knowing his skills and as a fan of the books, I was however really sad that he didn't put in some fantastic phantasmagorical scenes of Paul's 
. Nevermind, still a great adaptation of the book.
). I stand with you.
. 