Tsukamoto Shinya is a Japanese film director and actor with a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad. Tsukamoto started making movies at the age of 14, when his father gave him a Super 8 camera. His cinematic influences included Akira Kurosawa. He made a number of films, ranging from 10-minute shorts to 2-hour features, until his first year at college when he temporarily lost interest in making movies. Tsukamoto then started up a theatre group, which soon included Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka, and Tomorowo Taguchi, all of whom would continue to work with Tsukamoto up through the filming of Tetsuo: The Iron Man.