Tsukamoto Shinya`s fame - in Japan and the rest of the world - began with his 16mm feature Tetsuo, an extremist cyberpunk fantasy in which an ordinary man hit by a car finds his flesh mutating into metal. Nothing like that happens in Bullet Ballet, but the new film is very recognisably the mutant offspring of Tetsuo - and not only because this, too, is filmed in gun-metal monochrome. This time Tsukamoto (who as usual designed, photographed and edited it as well as writing and directing) plays Goda, a middle-class wimp fascinated by gun since his late girlfriend shot herself with one. His fascination becomes an obsession when he`s mugged and beaten by a steering street-gang. But Tokyo remains a virtually gun-free zone and his desperate attempts to buy a hand-gun (or make one at home) result only in humiliation, frustration and further beatings. Until, that is, a gun falls into his hands by accident. And by then his hormones have picked up on Chisato, the only woman in the gang, who happens to be in love with the idea of death... From the moody film noir opening to the cataclysmic finale, this is as kinetic and violent as anything Tsukamoto has done. But it`s less of a live-action comic strip than the earlier films: visually more sophisticated, psychologically more intense, pathologically more beautiful. (Tony Rayns)