I have very ambiguous thoughts about this. On one side, i love Tsukamoto, both his crazy and sincere sides, and he never made a downright bad movie. Question is, did the 1958 version really need a facelift? No. I think Tsukamoto made this for his own sake, and that is absolutely fine, i will not say anything bad about that. Honestly, watch both, and then make your own decision - did the original really need a facelift? And that is not me talking bad about Tsukamoto, i am just naturally skeptical towards remakes.

I never saw Kon Ichikawa's adaptation of the novel but I'm certain it's quite different from Tsukamoto's version. Given that he always wanted to do this movie I was actually expecting a bit more out of it. He certainly applies his own style to the setting (and Chu Ishikawa score is very fitting) but the graphic approach makes it difficult to take it completely serious. It's certainly the most graphic war film I can think of which is part of the 'horror' he was trying to capture but at the end the audience knows it's fake risking it to be more of a 'genre' film. It's not a big budget production so I think the appeal is limited but it will nonetheless leave an impression.