TETSUO:
THE IRON MAN

MOVIE REVIEW

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Review by
E.C.McMullen Jr.

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN - 1989
USA Release: April 22, 1992
Kaiju Theater / Fox Lorber Home Video
Rated: Finland: K18 / USA: Rated R

A Japanese version of ERASERHEAD with less story and worse camera work.

If there is one thing that really bugs me about Japanese cinema, it's that the most popular live-action movies are claiming to be all "cyberpunk" and "out there"!

What B.S.!

The best Horror/Action/SF movies coming out of Japan these days are their extraordinary anime! Why in the world is no one making live action movies of those? I would LOVE to see a live action movie based on such greats as GHOST IN THE SHELL and the comic book GENOCYBER. Real movies with real investor backing behind them.

It's no earth shaking announcement to say that Japanese cartoonists and animators are truly leading the charge in Action and Horror these days. If you are not familiar with anime, check out your local video store. Chances are, there is an entire row dedicated to just anime.

Insanely great stuff.

Naturally, with all the hype and hoopla on the cover of this movie, I expected "great" things. What a "great" disappointment.

To be quite honest, I probably would have liked this movie a whole lot better if the box ads hadn't pointed my tastes in another direction. The blurbs led me to believe that I would see something like THE MATRIX, instead of something more like ERASERHEAD: a switcheroo akin to eating French pastry food when you expected Barbeque.

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN starts out confused but interesting when some clown "The Metal Festishist" (Writer / Director Shin'ya Tsukamoto: TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER, TESTSUO III: THE BULLET MAN) who lives in a nest of twisted metal, purposefully drives a long iron screw into his leg.

Why? Who knows? But after he shoves it in, we see him removing the bandages. I assume it is some time later, but take nothing for granted in this flick. Anyway, the nutcase is horrified to see that his wound has become rancidly infected. The maggots living there are doing their best to eat away the dead tissue, but not enough to satisfy our wacky sack who goes running down the street, bemoaning his hard luck, and gets smacked by a car.

So far, so fun; but then it gets weird!

Now we meet a guy the "Man" (Tomorô Taguchi: TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER, TOMIE) who is not happy with his lot in life, and hams it up as much as humanly possible for the rest of the flick. He has an itty bit of metal growing out of his cheek and when he tries to pull it out it spits blood. He puts a bandage over it and, after much headache inducing jiggly camera work, sits on a bench next to a Woman In Glasses (Nobu Kanaoka: DENCHÛ KOZÔ NO BÔKEN, TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER). The Woman sees some kind of metal garbage on the street near her feet. Apparently, street filth holds an odd seduction for her. She has one hell of a time resisting its charms. After much hesitation, she decides to live life on the edge and touch it.

Merry mishaps ensue.

Pow! She starts turning into metal and chasing the man with the complexion problem East side, West side all around the uglier parts of the city. Who knows why, she just wants to touch him.

The Man resents her invasion of his personal space and wants the freaky lady to leave him the hell alone, but she isn't sensitive to his feelings and likes to make him suffer.

If you have trouble keeping up, just follow the bouncing camera work.

The flick continues to flagellate for about another hour but why ruin the story for you? If you are one of those people who like to watch a movie that makes no freakin' sense at all; if you like cryptic flicks that are so disjointed you have to use your own imagination to dream up a better flick than what you are actually seeing; if you like the kind of lightning quick, snappy-flash editing that would make an MTV VeeJay throw-up; then run go see TETSUO: THE IRON MAN.

Director/Writer/Actor Shinya Tsukamoto didn't like it. He remade the whole mess a few years later as TETSUO II: Body Hammer.