A Disappointing Continuation

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Shinya Tsukamoto ranks up there with the most important Japanese filmmakers working today, along with Miike, Sion Sono, and still prolific Kitano. "Bullet Ballet" is a return to the dark imagery and grainy, video-like metropolis-scape of "Tetsuo: The Iron Man", only more realistic and familiarized--this is the cyber-punk that could exist in the back alleys of your own town.A man obsesses over getting a gun after his girlfriend kills herself with one she was holding for a gang. Specifically, he wants her gun, but a gun of its same type will do. Meanwhile, the gang and he keep running into each other, with violent and abusive results, until eventually his obsession with the gun and their need to protect themselves from the violence of the city merge their paths into violent mayhem--and stark, abject beauty.The sexual overtones of the movie are quite obvious, while the stated theme of "man's need to create violence" is a little more subtle. One thing I really liked about this movie is that although it's quite stylized, like most maverick Asian entertainment out there, Tsukamoto shows a real grasp of montage and experimental film-making on top of the narrative continuity needed to direct the audience's emotions as much as compel their intellect. Some of the most memorable uses of back-projection, intercutting, and hand-held cinematography are used with a movie that is not afraid to take a contemplative moment aside to build real tension. It's not just eye-candy, this one. Of course, neither is anything else of Tsukamoto's I've seen, but sometimes a movie is so well-done it bears worth mentioning.A minor aside, one that has no real impact on the rating or receipt of this film in whole: that one chick who eventually ends up commiserating with the protagonist was scary thin. It was almost an abject horror unto itself to see her down to bra and underwear, looking like a skeleton. Because of the nature of the imagery, I don't know if the choice in that actress was intentional for the body-type or if she was the only one he could get.--PolarisDiB

This is my third film from this director, following the two TETSUO efforts; he seems to have quite a following, but I haven’t been impressed with what I’ve seen so far – on the contrary, the combination of flashy style and intense approach resulted not only in being off-putting but, for this viewer, it provoked boredom more than anything else! Anyway, while in those two earlier films, the visceral tone and unrelenting bleakness could perhaps be excused given their sci-fi/body-horror plot lines, these come off as mere hollow gestures in the juvenile delinquent milieu depicted here! The plot, if so it can be called, concerns a middle-aged man (played by the director himself!) who, in trying to come to terms with his fiancée’s baffling suicide, frantically tries to obtain a similar weapon (presumably in order to join her in the afterlife). However, during his nightly rounds of the city’s back streets, he runs into a gang of small-time (read: low-life) thugs who rough him up – so, he then finds a new purpose for his gun! Still, through his ambivalent relationship with a sluttish and tomboyish girl in the group, he’s drawn into open warfare between clans – and even intercedes for them when a hit-man turns up to exterminate them at their hide-out! While such a narrative could have spelt considerable visual excitement and even thematic depth, the grungy feel of it all (the ugly black-and-white cinematography of an industrial wasteland setting – which can now be seen as typical Tsukamoto - rapid cutting, noisy soundtrack) plus the obnoxious characters prevents audience engagement for practically the entire duration (not that the ostensible bond between the hero and the girl is handled satisfactorily, or in any way comprehensively): mercifully, the thing lasts for just a little over 80 minutes! Finally, I have to say that, while I’m generally a devoted fan of Japanese cinema, there are certain elements inherent in the Oriental outlook (usually having to do with nihilistic violence and/or mundane melodrama), which I haven’t been able to get into, no matter how hard I try…

There's a feeling you get after watching "Bullet Ballet", and it's like the story is kind of incomplete. There's a lack of something, maybe a little information about the characters and their lives. That's a big burden and it doesn't matter how attractive is the look of the film with all those nebulous textures, it does not matter if Tsukamoto probes that he knows how to use the camera (although sometimes everything looks a little bit dizzy), 'cause if you don't have a story or a script, you got nothing.It's a short movie and still you feel like it will never end. That's what it happens when you don't have a clue about what's going on in the screen (shoots, gangs, suicide... ???).*My rate: 4/10

Bullet Ballet starts out as a fine movie: man wants to avenge his wife, who had connections with a criminal organization. But how does he, a businessman, get a gun? The first 45 minutes deal with this and his search for the criminals: it is turning out to be a sort of Japanese Taxi Driver... But then during a gang fight the story shifts, to its demise, unfortunately. From then on you're looking at a lost cause, as every thread of plot from the first half is trashed and an entirely new movie appears, a very bad movie. Too bad, since Tsakamoto has made some fine movies before.