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Tetsuo - The Iron Man
1989
A visually arresting and highly disturbing urban flight of fancy from Japanese auteur Tsukamoto, who also starred, wrote, shot, and edited. A buttoned-up Japanese commuter accidentally rams his car into a cyberpunky 'metal fetishist' (Tsukamoto) whose jollies include transplating metal parts into his body. After this encounter, .. Read more
| Starring | Anthony Bevilacqua, Kei Fujiwara, Markus Greiner |
|---|---|
| Director | Shinya Tsukamoto |
| Genres | Horror, World Cinema |
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Tetsuo - The Iron Man
A visually arresting and highly disturbing urban flight of fancy from Japanese auteur Tsukamoto, who also starred, wrote, shot, and edited. A buttoned-up Japanese commuter accidentally rams his car into a cyberpunky 'metal fetishist' (Tsukamoto) whose jollies include transplating metal parts into his body. After this encounter, the businessman begins inexplicably transforming into a metal man-machine, and soon finds himself merging identities (and bodies) with the similarly mechanized fetishist.
| Starring | Anthony Bevilacqua, Kei Fujiwara, Markus Greiner |
|---|---|
| Director | Shinya Tsukamoto |
| Studio | PALISADES TARTAN |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 7 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Horror, World Cinema |
| Language | Japanese |
| Subtitles | English |
| Released | DVD: 22 Apr 2002 Production year: 1989 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (5)
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Between his classic Dracula and his masterpiece Freaks, Tod Browning made this conventional boxing drama about a lightweight on his way to the title. Playing the boxer is Lew Ayres, then famous for his role in All Quiet on the Western Front, who must somehow cope with the demands of his manager as well as the duplicity of his wife, played by Jean Harlow. Critics weren't entirely enthusiastic about Harlow's performance, but her move to MGM a year later saw her brief but spectacular career really take off.
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Weird science-fiction fantasy, by turns surreal and nasty, but displaying an unusual visual flair by its writer-director.
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Most helpful member's review
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16 out of 16 people found this review helpful
Absolutely Mental
'Tetsuo - The Iron Man' takes my record for being the most mental film I ever seen (and I've seen a lot of bizarre stuff)!
It's in black and white (even though made in 1989), with an industrial soundtrack and is a mixture of live action and stop-motion animation. Everything's done at a hyper-fast pace, so that even though the film is only 67 minutes long, there's plenty of content. It's also quite violent and a little disturbing in places.
The story is very confusing and it's often hard to figure out what's real, what's a flash-back and what's a dream. This effect is enhanced by the near lack of dialogue - it's primarily a very visual film. It's possible to get a number of different plots out of the film, depending on how you interpret it. In fact looking at internet reviews, you're often left feeling that some of them are reviewing completely different films. Here's my interpretation of the story (but I'm sure yours will be quite different if you decide to watch it):
The film opens with a weird metal fetishist inserting a rod into his thigh. When he sees maggots crawling over the open wound, he staggers out into the road and is promptly run over by a car driven by a Japanese Salaryman and his girlfriend. Rather than report the incident to the police, the pair drag their not-quite-dead victim off to a secluded location. Then, before leaving, they have sex whilst the metal fetishist looks on. Sometime later, whilst shaving, the Salaryman finds a sliver of metal sticking out of his face. The film then tells the story of how the Salaryman slowly mutates into a monster made of metal, wire and tubing and sporting a penis in the shape of huge spinning drill (which of course he ends up using on his girlfriend) and rockets on his feet. The metal fetishist comes back and he's also mutating into a similar metal monster. The two battle until eventually they end up joined together and decide to destroy the world.
The DVD's OK. The picture's fairly good considering it was shot on 16mm with a very tight budget and the sound is excellent. The subtitles are also readable (Tartan have a fairly poor track record in this respect). The extras consist of a few notes on the director, filmographies and some trailers, which is very disappointing.
Overall, this is well recommended viewing, provided you can approach it with an open mind. Definitely not a beer and curry movie! -
Most recent members' review
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Pedal To The Metal
This is one of the oddest films I've ever seen.
It's dark, dingy and while it has some good direction, with nauseous camera work, it looks more like an extreme pop video than a film. The fact that it is filmed in black & white makes it hard to discern what is going on, it may have had much more visual impact if it was in colour.
There is no script to speak of so you have to rely on your eyes and senses, and it certainly obliterates both.
The story is intriguing, but could've been summed up in half hour.
I didn't particularly enjoy this film, though it is watchable, and will definately appeal to extreme Asia fans, and also Lynch/Cronenburg fans.
If 'Eraserhead' messes with your mind and you like that, then this is one for you, which is very much in the same mould. -
News and features
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Paltrow eyes stage return
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Tetsuo - The Iron Man
A visually arresting and highly disturbing urban flight of fancy from Japanese auteur Tsukamoto, who also starred, wrote, shot, and edited. A buttoned-up Japanese commuter accidentally rams his car into a cyberpunky 'metal fetishist' (Tsukamoto) whose jollies include transplating metal parts into ...
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