TETSUO: THE
IRON MAN - 1989
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 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 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 food when you expected Barbeque.
TETSUO: THE IRON MAN starts out confused but interesting when some clown (Writer
/ Director Shinya Tsukamoto) 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, this
nutcase is horrified to see that his wound has become rancidly infected.
The maggots growing 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 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. 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 space invasion 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 lightening
quick, snappy-flash editing that would make an MTV VeeJay scream and puke;
then 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.
This review
copyright 1999 E.C.McMullen Jr.
Return to Movies
|
