Toshiaki Toyoda has been screwed, denied the reputation he deserves. His youth-on-the-loose classic, Blue Spring, is a cult favorite, and 9 Souls was widely admired. In 2005 he was poised to break big with his family dysfunction drama, Hanging Garden, a film that should have garnered the praise later applied to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s unambitious Tokyo Sonata (2008), but a drug arrest derailed his career just when it was about to take off. He was given a suspended sentence, but in the conservative Japanese film industry his career was over.

But Toyoda cannot be stopped, and Blood of Rebirth is a trippy shot fired over the bow of Japanese cinema proclaiming that his cinematic vision is as vital as it ever was. Based on the legend of the 15th century adventurer, Oguri Hangan Daisukeshige, Toyoda gives bruised flesh and hot blood to this folktale. Here, Oguri is a down-and-out wandering masseur hired by a local despot, Daizen, to massage away his venereal disease. Oguri is happy to oblige, but eventually he’s ready to move on. Unwilling to lose his latest human possession, Daizen kills him. And that’s when the story really begins.

Tatsuya Nakamura, drummer of the space rock band Twin Tail, plays Oguri and Twin Tail themselves stick their throbbing soundtrack deep inside your ears. With Blood, Toyoda has made a movie that’s literally about rebirth. Oguri cannot be stopped by jailhouse bars, by threats of violence, by disease or even by death itself. The Japanese film industry thought Toyoda was over, and they’d written him off. They weren’t prepared for this. Like Oguri, nothing can stop Toyoda. No matter where you bury him, no matter how hard you punish him, he will not quit. Blood of Rebirth is here to herald the rebirth of one of cinema’s most intense talents.