{"id":6339,"date":"2024-10-20T01:09:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T05:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6339"},"modified":"2024-10-20T01:09:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T05:09:03","slug":"tetsuo-the-iron-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/20\/tetsuo-the-iron-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Tetsuo: The Iron Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Original Cinema\/Horror-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 67 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (graphic violence, bizarre disturbing images, strong sexual content, nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Chu Ishikawa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Kei Fujiwara and Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 28, 1992 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tomoro Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka, Shin\u2019ya Tsukamoto, Naomasa Musaka, Renji Ishibashi.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in Japanese w\/English subtitles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Japanese cyberpunk horror-sci-fi film Tetsuo: The Iron Man <\/strong>(NOT the Marvel superhero!) is the very definition of the term \u201ccult movie\u201d. It\u2019s custom-made for midnight showings at smaller independent theaters as an alternative to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I don\u2019t see it having much appeal outside the crowd that regularly shows up at that hour to view films deemed not suitable for mainstream viewing. Shot in 16mm black and white, it is beyond weird. Bizarre only begins to describe the experience of watching this truly one-of-a-kind movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot, a term I use loosely, is fairly simple. An unnamed Japanese businessman (Taguchi) undergoes a horrifying transformation after he and his unnamed girlfriend (Fujiwara) attempt to cover up a violent crime against a depraved metal fetishist (Tsukamoto). This is what I\u2019d tell anybody who asks what Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> is about. It\u2019s not the entire story, of course. If asked to elaborate, I\u2019d say that it plays more like a surreal nightmare that makes sense only in the final stage of sleep, aka REM. When you wake up, you try to figure out what it all means. It\u2019s the same with Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong>. When the movie\u2019s over, you try to put it together into a coherent narrative only you can\u2019t. It\u2019s okay, you\u2019re not supposed to.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What we have with Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> is a collection of bizarre images that tell a wild story. It all starts with a scene of the fetishist inserting a large metal rod into a gaping wound on his leg. Seconds later, it\u2019s covered in maggots. The scene then shifts to the businessman in his apartment getting ready for work. While shaving, he finds a small metal spike protruding from his cheek. This is the beginning of his transformation into the \u201cIron Man\u201d of the title. It gets much weirder from here. On his way to work, he\u2019s chased by a lady with glasses (Kanaoka) who physically bonds with a flesh-metal object she finds on the floor in a subway station. It leads to a crazy fight. Later in his apartment, dinner with his girlfriend is interrupted by a certain appendage turning into a large metal drill. The movie culminates in a battle between the Iron Man and the fetishist, also a man of metal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> is a self-made job by Tsukamoto (he writes, directs and produces) that bears the influences of David Lynch, David Cronenberg and Sam Raimi. Let\u2019s break it down. The black and white cinematography, expressionistic lighting and surreal industrial imagery are all reminiscent of Lynch\u2019s Eraserhead. The body horror is pure Cronenberg; Videodrome, in particular. The wild camerawork and stop-motion effects evoke Raimi\u2019s The Evil Dead. Tsukamoto brings it all together into one unique vision, one that\u2019s simultaneously eye-catching and horrifying. There\u2019s nothing pretty in (or about) Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> yet it has a beauty all its own. Does that make any sense? If it does, this movie is for you.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the most frequent questions I hear in my line of work is \u201cWhat\u2019s the movie really<\/em> about?\u201d It\u2019s not a question I like, but I suppose it\u2019s valid. If asked this query about Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong>, I\u2019d have to say it\u2019s really<\/em> about the industrialization of modern Japan. On a deeper level, it deals with the fear of humanity being replaced by machinery. Of course, this all textbook stuff. I expect that most people watching Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> are intelligent enough to figure it out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At a mere 67 minutes, Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> barely qualifies as a feature film yet it\u2019s just long enough to wear out its welcome near the end. That is to say, it gets to be too much. It\u2019s not the easiest film to watch to begin with. At the same time, I think it\u2019s great. It\u2019s bleak, no doubt, but it\u2019s cool. What\u2019s truly impressive is how Tsukamoto managed to realize his vision on such a small budget. I don\u2019t have the exact figures, but he made it with money he saved from his day job. It\u2019s low-budget without looking cheap. He gets a lot of bang for his buck. Take the scenes of the Iron Man speeding through city streets via rockets on his feet. Like Raimi in his first major feature, Tsukamoto speeds up the camera. It\u2019s wild!<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t know what to say about Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> that I haven\u2019t already said. Although influenced by the work of other filmmakers, it\u2019s definitely its own movie. You\u2019ve probably never seen anything quite like it outside a bad dream. It has minimal dialogue; the narrative is imagery-driven. OMG, Tetsuo: The Iron Man<\/strong> really is like a bad dream. Watch it late at night to get the full effect, I dare you.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Original Cinema\/Horror-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 67 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (graphic violence, bizarre disturbing images, strong sexual content, nudity, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Chu Ishikawa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Kei Fujiwara and Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 28, 1992 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tomoro Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka, Shin\u2019ya Tsukamoto, Naomasa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cool-cult-flicks","category-foreign","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Tetsuo-The-Iron-Man-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6339"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6528,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339\/revisions\/6528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}