Amazon.com: Shinya Tsukamoto draws on the marriage of flesh and technology that inspires so much of David Cronenberg's work and then twists it into a manga-influenced cyberpunk vision. A man (Tomoroh Taguchi) awakens from a nightmare in which his body is helplessly fusing with the metal objects around him, only to find it happening to him in real life... or is it? Haunted by memories of a hit and run (eerily prophetic of Cronenberg's Crash), the man knows this ordeal could be a dream, a fantastic form of divine retribution, or perhaps technological mutation born of guilt and rage. Shot in bracing black and white on a small budget, Tsukamoto puts a demented conceptual twist on good old-fashioned stop-motion effects and simple wire work, giving his film the surreal quality of a waking dream with a psychosexual edge (resulting in the film's most disturbing scene). The story ultimately takes on an abstract quality enhanced by the grungy look and increasingly wild images as they take to the streets in a mad chase of technological speed demons. This first entry in his self-titled "Regular Sized Monster Series" is followed by a full-color sequel, Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, which trades the muddy experimental atmosphere for a big-budget sheen but can't top the cybershock to the system this movie packs. --Sean Axmaker
brilliant This film is absolutely brilliant. Tsukamoto's genius shines through this gritty and rusted masterpiece. His way of filming is unique and beautiful to say the least. There is also some really impressive stop motion animation to be seen in this film, though its fairly brief. The sound track is also a masterpiece, if you can find it on cd, i highly recommend it. Over all Tetsuo: The Iron Man is one of the most beautiful films to have been made, it is pure and it is rust.
Full of itself, but ultimately unfulfilling I bought this DVD on heavy recommendations... and must now go beat my friends unmercifully. This film illuminates a classic truth: "Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do something". The director goes crazy with the stop-motion and wire effects... and ends up with a boring compilation of one mess after another. I do mean "mess". If this achieved "cult" status, then all I can say is that would-be cultists are scraping by on some lean fare!
I'm sure the director is trying to say something here... and perhaps the subtitles didn't help any... but this was simply his love affair with (SUPREMELY dated) special effects work. Nothing more. I swear, I don't even think this was very good EFX work for the time period in which it was made. I remember amatuer stop motion work from the 70s on public access channels that looked more interesting than this stuff.
Oh, and I don't think I've ever seen a Japanese man's mouth open wide in a rictus of shock/horror/fear so often in a movie before. This was the actor trying to emote, obviously, but ended up looking nothing more than ridiculous.
After all the urgings I received to get this movie, I thought it might well become a gem of my library. Instead it goes to the bottom of the barrel.
Yes, I "got it" alright. I simply didn't think "it" was worth much at all.
You've never seen anything quite like this This movie is just cool to watch - and hear! Heavy, industrial music and sound effects, black and white, guaranteed to put you 'in a metal mood'. After you've seen it, you won't be able to get certain images out of your head. Don't spend too much time trying to figure out the "plot" (or lack of it..), just allow yourself to be amazed, freaked out and sucked in by this trippy, crazy, horrific little gem.
Ouch! This was a very difficult film for me to watch, and I would not recommend it for the faint of heart or those that are not able to objectify films with intense amoral visual imagery. I believe that the film is saying something important, but I've never been able to say precisely what. The film maker has a real talent for letting us stroll through some of his deeper inner states. Andre Tarkovsky is the only other film maker that I've ever seen do a better job of this, and its hard to compare the two because their styles are very different. I first saw this film on VHS from a rental store in Lincoln, NE about ten years ago. About three years ago as I was trying to describe it to a film-afficiando friend of mine, I got curous about seeing it again, hopefully now on DVD. Fortunately I was able to find it and the exprience was vastly improved seeing it from a good transfer to DVD. For film buffs with an eye toward unique visual artistry, I would recommend this very gritty art-film without hesitation.
Vengeance from the grave kills the people he once saved I graduated from an art school. Every year we had our film festival, where students and professors from across the country could show their work. There were three types of movies you usually saw there: 1) the normal kind, with a narrative and characters as you would see in any other film; 2) the artistic kind, which explores film method while providing the audience with thought-provoking visuals; 3) the obnoxiously artistic kind, which goes overboard, and after the film ends the audience will be dead silent for five seconds before finally clapping. This movie, an independant Japanese film from the late 1980's, reminded me of the latter.
It's really hard to say what "Tetsuo the Iron Man" is about, because I wasn't even entirely sure myself. It opens with a man cutting open his leg and sticking a metal wirehose into it. (all in graphic detail) He freaks out when he sees maggots and darts away, getting hit by the car. The driver (I think) suffers later, finding parts of his body turning into metal and having weird hallucinations of metallic sex. (I think)
This is definitely not a movie for everyone. Aside from the violence, the extremely erratic filmmaking will either inspire or aggravating the viewer. The narrative goes from one bizarre scene to the next. First the main character is being chased by a weird zombie metal woman in the subway station, then he's being raped by a woman with a metal wiretube strap-on. (no I did not make that up) All these scenes go on for a good while, never showing any sign of when they were going to end, which got on my nerves quite frankly. That and the soundtrack. Besides the freaky music accompanying the film, you constantly hear the main character's gutteral noises. You know that goofy choking sound the voice actors make in "Dragonball Z" whenever they get punched hard or see something scary? Imagine listening to that for over 60 minutes. I got tired of it after about 20 minutes. Actually, I just got tired of the whole thing because I realized it had been only 20 minutes and thought it had already been an hour.
I tried reading the critique of the film in the DVD special features to get some insight, but that didn't help much. All I read was, "Wow, this film was a lot like David Cronenberg's stuff!" Well whoop-dee-doo, the guy who made "Battlefield Earth" was inspired by Akira Kurosawa, that doesn't make the film good! I've read about all these themes of suppressed homosexuality, psychosexual tension, and Japanese culture, but all I got from the film was a guy staring at cheap metallic make-up going "O-o-o-o-o-oh!" over and over again.
If you're into extravagent films that require drugs to be enjoyed, then this is right up your alley. Or if you're in love with an art student and want to make it with them, go ahead and invite them over to your apartment for a viewing. Just might work, you never know.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
