Killing (2018)

Description

As the 21st century entered its second decade, celebrated director Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, Vital) continued to subvert expectations, embracing digital filmmaking techniques and finding new avenues to explore his recurring themes of alienation and bodily violence. 2011's Kotoko, a collaboration between Tsukamoto and Japanese pop sensation Cocco (A Bride for Rip Van Winkle) – who co-writes and stars, in addition to providing music and art direction-tells the story of a young mother, the eponymous Kotoko, tormented by violent hallucinations and bouts of self-harm. When her baby son is taken from her by child services, Kotoko enters into a relationship with a celebrated novelist (Tsukamoto), using his body as a canvas on which to enact her violent fantasies, all the while spiraling further and further into psychotic madness. Then, in 2018's Killing – Tsukamoto's most recent film, here making its home video debut – the filmmaker deconstructs the mythology of the noble samurai in a tale of honor and vengeance set against the backdrop of the dying embers of Feudal Japan. A masterless Ronin, Mokunoshin (Sosuke Ikematsu, The Last Samurai), finds his peaceful life in a quiet village under threat with the arrival of an older samurai, Sawamura (Tsukamoto), seeking to recruit a band of warriors to fight for the shogun. Soon, Mokunoshin, who has never before killed a man, finds his pacifistic ideal being tested to the absolute limit, as swords are crossed and bloody carnage ensues.