Director: Shinya Tsukamoto. Review: Adam Wing. Mental instability takes a deadly turn in Shinya Tsukamoto’s Kotoko, the only Japanese film to win the Best Film Award in the Orrizonti of the Venice Film Festival. Tsukamoto is best known around the world for his first two entries in the Tetsuo series, with Tokyo Fist, Bullet Ballet and A Snake of June cementing his name in cult legend. His latest surreal nightmare is available in the UK this month courtesy of Third Window Films. Cocco – a well-known Japanese folk singer – performed the closing theme tune for his 2004 film, Vital. She takes centre stage in Kotoko, playing a young single mother with unrestrained reality issues. Cocco also provides the soundtrack for Kotoko, a move that might be considered self-indulgent by some, especially when you consider the amount of time she spends singing and dancing on screen. Tsukamoto’s latest comes with a fascinating concept,...
- 10/8/2012
- 24framespersecond.net
★★★★☆ From Shin'ya Tsukamoto, the visionary director of 1989's Tetsuo: The Iron Man, comes Kotoko (2011) - an uncompromising voyage into the troubled mind of a young mother that's profoundly unsettling and severely disturbing. Kotoko follows the story of a single mother (played with breathtaking luminosity by J-pop superstar Cocco) teetering on the edge of a metal breakdown since suffering from double vision, turning her everyday life into an unbearable series of encounters.
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- 10/8/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
It’s Monday, so we all know what that means! Yes, it’s time for another rundown of DVDs and Blu-ray’s hitting stores online and offline this week. It’s a jam-packed week, with plenty of movies waiting to take you money, so let us breakdown the new releases and highlight what you should – and shouldn’t – be buying from today, October 8th 2012.
Pick Of The Week
Nash Bridges: The First Season (DVD)
In the first season of this action-packed police drama, Don Johnson stars as Nash Bridges, the charming street-smart inspector for San Francisco’s elite Special nvestigations Unit. Always behind the wheel of his signature yellow ‘Cuda,’ Nash often goes undercover to track down the city s most vile criminals, from drug dealers and smugglers to the Russian mob. Never far behind is Nash’s loyal partner Joe Dominguez (Cheech Marin), a retired cop who’s...
Pick Of The Week
Nash Bridges: The First Season (DVD)
In the first season of this action-packed police drama, Don Johnson stars as Nash Bridges, the charming street-smart inspector for San Francisco’s elite Special nvestigations Unit. Always behind the wheel of his signature yellow ‘Cuda,’ Nash often goes undercover to track down the city s most vile criminals, from drug dealers and smugglers to the Russian mob. Never far behind is Nash’s loyal partner Joe Dominguez (Cheech Marin), a retired cop who’s...
- 10/8/2012
- by Phil
- Nerdly
Kotoko
Stars: Cocco, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | Written by Shinya Tsukamoto, Cocco | Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
Films are interesting beasts, they entertain you, they pull out emotions from you and they make you care about the characters. I find from experience though that few films, especially ones that can be classed as “Hollywood films” are a true experience. Only a few really manage to pull you in and leave you feeling drained after watching them. Kotoko is arguably not just a film in itself but an experience and one that will probably leave you feeling a lot more uncomfortable than you really want to be.
Kotoko is about a woman with a strange illness that leaves her with double vision. This double vision creates two realities for her, and she struggles daily to understand what is real and what is not. Struggling to look after her son she finally loses her...
Stars: Cocco, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | Written by Shinya Tsukamoto, Cocco | Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
Films are interesting beasts, they entertain you, they pull out emotions from you and they make you care about the characters. I find from experience though that few films, especially ones that can be classed as “Hollywood films” are a true experience. Only a few really manage to pull you in and leave you feeling drained after watching them. Kotoko is arguably not just a film in itself but an experience and one that will probably leave you feeling a lot more uncomfortable than you really want to be.
Kotoko is about a woman with a strange illness that leaves her with double vision. This double vision creates two realities for her, and she struggles daily to understand what is real and what is not. Struggling to look after her son she finally loses her...
- 10/7/2012
- by Pzomb
- Nerdly
Japanese auteur and cult favourite Shinya Tsukamoto returns with “Kotoko”, combining the apocalyptic style of his classic “Tetsuo” films with the monstrous and terrifyingly intimate tale of a young single mother losing her mind in hallucinogenic and violent fashion. Taking on the difficult lead role is singer and songwriter Cocco, who previously worked with Tsukamoto back in 2004, providing the lead song for his morbidly beautiful “Vital”, and who here also co-scripted with the director as well as providing Art Direction and music. In addition to writing and directing, Tsukamoto also served as producer and editor, as well as playing one of the lead roles himself, adding a fascinatingly personal and artistic dimension to the film. Coco plays the titular Kotoko, a single mother who struggles to take care of herself and her new born child. Tormented by frightening visions and often seeing hostile doubles of the people she meets, she...
- 10/1/2012
- by James Mudge
- Beyond Hollywood
Kotoko
Review by Andrew McArthur of The People’s Movies
Stars: Cocco, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | Written by Cocco, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | Directed by Shin’ya Tsukamoto
Japanese director and actor, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, latest project sees him team up with folk rock artist, Cocco for disturbing horror drama, Kotoko. Tsukamoto’s film follows a woman, Kotoko, balancing life as a single mother, alongside her threatening mental problems. Gradually, the boundaries between what is real and what is simply a product of her dark imagination, begin to blur.
Shin’ya Tsukamoto is on top form visually, dragging us into Kotoko’s harrowing nightmare world filled with twisted double vision and hallucinations of the dangers that could affect her child. Kotoko’s disturbing apparitions are particularly difficult to watch – seeing the mentally unstable mother standing on a rooftop, slowly loosening her grip of her baby, is completely unsettling. This combined with Kotoko’s high pitched,...
Review by Andrew McArthur of The People’s Movies
Stars: Cocco, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | Written by Cocco, Shin’ya Tsukamoto | Directed by Shin’ya Tsukamoto
Japanese director and actor, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, latest project sees him team up with folk rock artist, Cocco for disturbing horror drama, Kotoko. Tsukamoto’s film follows a woman, Kotoko, balancing life as a single mother, alongside her threatening mental problems. Gradually, the boundaries between what is real and what is simply a product of her dark imagination, begin to blur.
Shin’ya Tsukamoto is on top form visually, dragging us into Kotoko’s harrowing nightmare world filled with twisted double vision and hallucinations of the dangers that could affect her child. Kotoko’s disturbing apparitions are particularly difficult to watch – seeing the mentally unstable mother standing on a rooftop, slowly loosening her grip of her baby, is completely unsettling. This combined with Kotoko’s high pitched,...
- 7/3/2012
- by Guest
- Nerdly
After a successful run on the festival circuit - it was awarded in Venice - the first trailer has arrived for Shinya Tsukamoto's Kotoko, a film created by the cult icon specifically for it's star - pop singer Cocco. But I think it's safe to say this is some glamorous vanity project for the singer. The Toronto International Film Festival described the film this way:Kotoko (Cocco) holds a fragile grip on reality. A young mother, she fiercely protects her son from what she imagines are constant predatory threats. Even when her infant boy is in her arms, Kotoko envisions death around every corner. As fantasies overwhelm her, she is forced to give up her son and face her manic highs and terrifying bouts of...
- 1/18/2012
- Screen Anarchy
If you’ve read this website for any length of time, then you probably know that I’m a certified Tsukamoto junkie, an unapologetic fanboy who blindly follows the director wherever he goes. Hell, I even enjoyed “Tetsuo: The Bullet Man”, a film that really isn’t that great when compared to the filmmaker’s other, more accomplished efforts. The guy’s latest flick, the emotionally-charged drama “Kotoko”, looks incredible, and has more in common with his more subdued pictures than the “Tetsuo” franchise. Still, a subdued Tsukamoto is much crazier than your typical cinematic endeavor. You’ll see what I’m rambling about in just a few seconds. But first, let’s investigate this synopsis: A single mother (Cocco) becomes afflicted with double vision. Taking care of her newborn baby becomes a nightmare as the mother also becomes paranoid. The only time the mother doesn’t see double is when she sings.
- 1/18/2012
- by Todd Rigney
- Beyond Hollywood
Following rounds 1 and 2, this one will take us right on through the countdown to Halloween and will surely be the most actively updated of the bunch. Best to begin, then, by grounding it in a classic, so we turn to David Kalat: "Frankenstein isn't a science fiction story about an arrogant scientist who intrudes on God's domain, it's a metaphor about our relationship to God." That's his argument, and I'll let him explain, but I want to pull back to a couple of earlier sentences in his piece. Mary Shelley's novel, "and the 1910 film version, treated the 'science' of Frankenstein as just so much folderol, a MacGuffin to introduce the artificial man into the story. Whale was so good at providing a reasonably convincing visualization of reviving the dead — no, more than that, a stunningly satisfying visualization of reviving the dead — it focused popular attention on that part of...
- 10/27/2011
- MUBI
Kotoko
Directed by Shin’ya Tsukamoto
Written by Shin’ya Tsukamoto
2011, Japan
Festival veteran, Japanese Diy master, Shinya Tsukamoto has earned a devoted cult following for his unnerving explorations of the junction between body and technology, most notably as seen in his Tetsuo films. Kotoko serves as both a union of themes explored in his previous movies, while investing his lead with some psychological depth. Now the genre master delves beyond the flesh and into the mind, in this case that of a single mother suffering from Postpartum depression- a serious form of clinical depression which can affect women, typically after childbirth. Symptoms include fatigue, insomnia, reduced libido, bodily harm, anxiety, and irritability. It’s unclear when Kotoko’s illness began, but it appears to be getting increasingly worse as our protagonists explains in a voice over that, “she cuts herself not because she wants to die but to see...
Directed by Shin’ya Tsukamoto
Written by Shin’ya Tsukamoto
2011, Japan
Festival veteran, Japanese Diy master, Shinya Tsukamoto has earned a devoted cult following for his unnerving explorations of the junction between body and technology, most notably as seen in his Tetsuo films. Kotoko serves as both a union of themes explored in his previous movies, while investing his lead with some psychological depth. Now the genre master delves beyond the flesh and into the mind, in this case that of a single mother suffering from Postpartum depression- a serious form of clinical depression which can affect women, typically after childbirth. Symptoms include fatigue, insomnia, reduced libido, bodily harm, anxiety, and irritability. It’s unclear when Kotoko’s illness began, but it appears to be getting increasingly worse as our protagonists explains in a voice over that, “she cuts herself not because she wants to die but to see...
- 10/14/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
#14. Kotoko Director: Shinya Tsukamoto Cast: Cocco, Shinya Tsukamoto Distributor: Rights Available Buzz: Can't say that I'm an unconditional fan of this cult Japanese filmmaker, but if I had to choose a side-dish of mayhem during the fest I'd go with this number which just like the Testuo film before it, is also en route to Venice. A mentor to several filmmakers, in a way this mimics that of Aronofsky's Black Swan - female protag is powerless unless performing. Shinya Tsukamoto employees Cocco - a non-actress professional singer for the gig. Should be a bloodcurling highlight outside of the Midnight Madness section. The Gist: The story of a single mother who suffers from double vision; caring for her baby is a nerve-wrecking task that eventually leads her to a nervous breakdown. She is suspected of being a child abuser when things get out of control and her baby is taken away.
- 9/3/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
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