The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo

Shinya Tsukamoto made this forty-five minute piece at a point when he had nearly given up on film. He had shot Super 8 films as a teenager and then moved into theatre, and this is an adaptation of one of his own stage plays, shot on eight millimetre. A boy who carries an electricity pole on his back is mocked, flung forward in time, and lands in a city taken over by vampires. Its importance is that Tetsuo, two years away, is already assembled here. The assaultive cutting, the manipulated film speed, the friction between metal and flesh and the idea of machinery fixed into the body are all present. For anyone who has seen Tetsuo and wondered where it came from, this is the direct answer. It won the grand prize at the Pia Film Festival's first competition in 1988, which brought Tsukamoto back to filmmaking. Who it is for: viewers interested in Japanese independent cinema and in Tsukamoto's origins. Who it is not for: anyone wanting technical polish, or who will find the chaotic editing exhausting.