Tetsuo (1989)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Shinya Tsukamoto

Writer:

Shinya Tsukamoto (writer)

Release Date:

1 July 1989 (Japan)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

A strange man known only as the "metal fetishist", who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body...

Plot Keywords:

Metal | Fetishist | Transformation | Japanese | Telekinesis

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Tomorowo Taguchi	...	Man
Kei Fujiwara	...	Woman
Nobu Kanaoka	...	Woman in Glasses
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Renji Ishibashi	...	Tramp
Naomasa Musaka	...	Doctor
Shinya Tsukamoto	...	Metals Fetishist

Also Known As:

Tetsuo, the Iron Man (USA)
The Ironman

Runtime:

67 min | Argentina:69 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Germany:16 | Singapore:(Banned) | Australia:R | Finland:K-18 | Italy:VM14 | Japan:R | New Zealand:R13 | UK:18 | USA:Not Rated | Argentina:16

Company:

Japan Home Video (JHV)

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Dead or Alive: Final (2002)

F***ed up but fun and cool

Tetsuo or Ironman is a very interesting movie that explores the themes of metal and flesh and how they interact......I think. The story is sketchy at best, it's more of a visual assault on the senses. Tetsuo is some regular looking Japanese business man type dude who has a girlfriend. One day while shaving he notices a shard of metal protruding from his face. Metallic pieces of metal start spreading all over his face and then leave, and then return again until eventually his body becomes more metal than man. There is some kind of subplot of how he came to get this strange desease. Tetsuo and his girlfriend hit some guy (who just before cut open his leg and jammed an iron bar into the slit) with their car. They take his body out into the forest to hide it -i think- and then have sex in front of the corpse for a thrill. The guy isn't dead though and somehow he gives tetsuo the desease -i think-. He comes back to haunt tetsuo as tetsuo turns into a human scrapyard and then attacks him physically in a very strange dual of metalic body morphing near the end of the film.

A lot of the movie is stop motion animation mixed with live action actors. It is comparable to Eraserhead in that way but i liked this a lot more than eraserhead. While Eraserhead is really slow and monotunus, Iron man moves at a breakneck pace to an awesome industrial music soundtrack. The industrial music is perfect for this film because the film is based on dirty grimy and rusty industrial metal garbage and even the environments are all streamlined industrial parks and monotonous suburbs.

The thing i like about this movie is although it is "artsy" it's the kind of art that's fun to look at. You don't have to be some rich art fag pretending to like weird s*** to prove that your some kind of an intellectual to like it. I was really entertained by this movie! Unlike the other reviewer I don't think this movie is purposely all f***ed up for the sake of being artistic. I think the director wanted to make a visual statement about the relationship technology has with our physical lives. More interested in telling a cool sci fi story with fantastic visuals than with coherent dialogue that makes you ponder the universe. I also didn't get the feeling that this movie took itself too seriously. It's actually quite funny at times and that's why i had fun watching it.

If you don't like movies that give you no hope in understanding every aspect of the plot don't watch this, but if you like WEIRD sci fi stuff that's unlike anything you've seen before than watch this!