Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp (C) 1997 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: Supercalifragilisticbiomechanoidism.
The original TETUSO: THE IRON MAN, made for about the cost of the opening credits of many, many far less successful movies, was a 67-minute blitzkrieg on the senses that became a deserved cult staple, both here and in its native Japan. The director, a gentleman named Shinya Tsukamoto who will probably not be receiving much babysitting work, has gone ahead and created a follow-up, in spirit more than in form. It doesn't have the total advantage of novelty, but it has searing images in abundance, and a very strange story indeed -- a slightly more coherent one that its predecessor, if that's an inducement.
As with the last film, Tomoro Taguchi stars as a meek "salaryman", except this fellow has a wife and child, and they have what appears to be as normal an existence as could be asked for from modern-day Japan... except the camerawork as they eat is just a little bit creepy. Then their son is kidnapped by a gang of thugs, and his rage somehow makes him mutate into a kind of human gun, wreaking (unwanted?) havoc every-which-way. That's as much of the plot as bears up under a synposis; the rest is one blast of images after another. (One slightly astonishing item: the remarkable sets were all "found"; nothing was constructed for the sake of the movie.)
Is this a horror movie or a piece of SF? With the blurring of the lines between the two (thanks to some good movies like ALIEN and some dreadful ones like HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE), it's safe just to call it a gut-level experience. There are many moments where it doesn't make sense, but we never get the feeling it was *supposed* to. It's quite a ride, and it leaves you wrung out and raw-eyed, the way it should. As far as more coherency to the story goes, there's a detour about 2/3 of the way through to explain a major character's actions, but it should be regarded more for the sake of color than plot: What's most fascinating about TETSUO and BODY HAMMER is not why any of this is happening, but what everyone does because of it.
Three out of four body-cannon-electrode-probe-thingies.
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