An hour-long feature from Japanese director Shinyu Tsukamoto, Tetsuo (also known as Tetsuo: The Iron Man) tells a horrific, cyberpunk-influenced science fiction tale about the intersection of man and post-industrial technology. The central character is a Japanese salary man, an average office worker who is transformed by a brief encounter with a metals fetishist, a man who has purposefully implanted pieces of scrap metal in his body. The salary man soon begins sprouting pieces of metal from
various parts of his body, a change which is accompanied by increasingly nightmarish visions and bizarre, metal-filled sexual fantasies. As the man evolves into a strange hybrid of man and machine, he also develops a telepathic connection with another of his kind: the metal fetishist, who has been undergoing a similar conversion, and may indeed be the cause of the salary man's transformation. The two engage in a violent, destructive battle throughout the streets of Tokyo, accompanied by an appropriately industrial soundtrack. Shot on a small budget in 16 millimeter black-and-white, Tsukamoto reprised many of the images and plot elements of Tetsuo in a higher-budgeted sequel, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
As a freak show..., Tetsuo certainly deserves its reputation. It contains memorable sequences of sickening imagination, and unique takes on tired sci-fi/ action ideas.
A man finds himself transforming, from the inside out, into a creature made of metal in this influential and gory experimental Japanese film. It's an almost nonsensical but extremely intense barrage of images of dehumanization; welcome to the machine age.
April 29, 2008
Greg S
Super Reviewer
This is one hell of a visual assault on the mind! Full of bizarre and bloody depictions of bio-mechanical bodily transmutation as a man eventually turns into a metal mutant being. It's frenetically paced with surreal imagery and all filmed in black and white. There's hardly any dialogue though and the story leaves a
lot of unanswered questions and you're left wondering just what is going on. Definitely not for the casual mainstream movie fan. It's disturbing and original and often credited with starting Japanese splatter genre. If you're into the weird and unusual this is a must-see.
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