Tsukamoto Shinya Tells Tokyo Audience How He Stayed Independent

Tsukamoto Shinya, the director best known overseas for the 1989 feature Tetsuo: The Iron Man, has spoken about his career at a masterclass at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival. Variety reported on the session, which was moderated by Ichiyama Shozo, the festival's programming director.

Tsukamoto used the event to talk about his most recent film, Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?. It is an English-language feature starring Rodney Hicks and Geoffrey Rush, and it tells the true story of a marine. The film was presented at the Venice Film Festival in September 2026.

The festival described the session as a look at the secrets of filmmaking and the creative process, and at his personal journey and unique vision. Much of the talk went back to his early years, when he made films with very little money.

He shot Tetsuo on 16mm film, before digital effects were common. He told the audience the film used no CG, and that it took about a year to make. Variety reported that his second feature, the horror film Hiruko the Goblin, was made with a larger budget.

Studios approached him after Tetsuo, according to the same report. He said he turned them down because he did not want to become a director for hire, meaning a filmmaker who takes on projects set up by someone else and has little say over them. Instead he kept producing independently, with titles such as Bullet Ballet and Tokyo Fist.

That independent streak also runs through his 2014 war film Fires on the Plain. It was also made outside the studio system. The story is based on a novel by Ooka Shohei, which Ichikawa Kon had already adapted for the screen in 1959. Tsukamoto's version was shot in three places: partly in the Philippines, partly in Okinawa, and the rest in Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo.

For a general viewer, the thread is simple. Tsukamoto built a name with a small, hard-to-make film, then chose to keep control of his work rather than take studio assignments. Each of his films since has been shaped by that choice about money, crews and locations. The masterclass offered a chance to hear him explain it in his own words.