{"id":6341,"date":"2024-10-20T01:09:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T05:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6341"},"modified":"2024-10-20T01:09:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T05:09:58","slug":"tetsuo-ii-body-hammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/20\/tetsuo-ii-body-hammer\/","title":{"rendered":"Tetsuo II: Body Hammer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Tetsuo II: Body Hammer <\/strong>(1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Manga Entertainment\/Horror-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 83 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (bizarre violent images throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Chu Ishikawa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fumikazu Oda, Shinya Tsukamoto and Katsunori Yokoyama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 15, 1997 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tomoro Taguchi, Shin\u2019ya\u00a0 Tsukamoto, Nobu Kanaoka, Sujin Kim, Hideaki Tezuka, Tomoo Asada, Iwata, Keinosuke Tomioka, Torauemon Utazawa.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in Japanese w\/English subtitles<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

\u00a0Shinya Tsukamoto\u2019s Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong>, a quasi-sequel to his cult cyberpunk body horror movie Tetsuo: The Iron Man, is his Evil Dead 2. It\u2019s both a follow-up to and retelling of the story of a dorky Japanese businessman (Taguchi) whose body transforms into a mass of metal only with a bigger budget and color film. It also has a more coherent narrative while retaining the same level of bizarre as its predecessor. This time, Tsukamoto drops his protagonist in the middle of a crazy plan to destroy humanity by creating a race of super-human cyborgs or some such nonsense. Like the original, man\u2019s fear of being replaced by machines comes into play.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This time, the characters have names. Tomoo, the businessman, lives a life of quiet bliss with his wife Kana (Kanaoka) and young son Minori (Tomioka). That is, until a couple of cyborg skinheads kidnap the boy. He gives chase, an endeavor that concludes with the creeps forcibly injecting Tomoo with an unknown substance while he dangles from the edge of a tall building. His son is returned unharmed only to be unintentionally killed later by his own hand courtesy of the same cyber-creeps. They work for the movie\u2019s villain Yatsu (Tsukamoto), aka \u201cThe Fetishist, the demented mastermind behind the evil plan. It turns out that Tomoo possess the ability to transform into a machine at will and Yatsu, who has the same power, needs him to make his plan work. Yes, there\u2019s a past connection between hero and villain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Please don\u2019t think me shallow if I start off by saying Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong> is one crazy ass movie! There\u2019s really no better way to put it. HOWEVER, my profession demands that I elaborate on my opinions so here we go. If inclined, one could say that Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong> is really<\/em> an expression of the filmmaker\u2019s fear of Tokyo morphing into a jungle of concrete and steel and its inhabitants following suit. One could also reference the Henry David Thoreau book Walden to make a point about a life of simplicity in modern society. That\u2019s the intellectual viewpoint, but since the audience isn\u2019t entirely comprised of scholars, let\u2019s talk about Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong> is less esoteric terms.<\/p>\n

\u00a0How does Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong> hold up as entertainment? I\u2019d say extremely well. It\u2019s crazy and it\u2019s cool. More money doesn\u2019t appear to affect how Tsukamoto does the special effects. He sticks (or seems to) with stop-motion animation as opposed to CGI. That\u2019s something I can definitely get behind. It adds to the whole cyberpunk surrealism thing he has going here. It alternates between nightmare and heavy metal music video. Its visual palette with all its blue and gray hues is quite impressive as are the kinetic action scenes. The imagery in these scenes recalls anime classics like Akira. Tsukamoto also makes excellent use of sound. Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong> is definitely a movie more for the senses than the brain. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s dumb. It\u2019s actually pretty smart in its own right.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I now find myself at an impasse. What else is there to say about Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong>? Obviously, I like it. If I have one criticism, it\u2019s that its comic book-esque plot is a little too conventional. How many American sci-fi-action flicks resort to the same thing? The first movie was pure nightmare material. I also miss the bleak tone and aesthetic of the original. Of the two, it\u2019s the one that stays with you. Don\u2019t get me wrong, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer<\/strong> is a lot of wildly entertaining fun. Or maybe I should just say it\u2019s wild. Either way, it\u2019s crazy ass cool.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Manga Entertainment\/Horror-Sci-Fi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 83 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (bizarre violent images throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Shinya Tsukamoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Chu Ishikawa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fumikazu Oda, Shinya Tsukamoto and Katsunori Yokoyama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 15, 1997 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Tomoro Taguchi, Shin\u2019ya\u00a0 Tsukamoto, Nobu Kanaoka, Sujin Kim, Hideaki Tezuka, Tomoo Asada, Iwata, Keinosuke Tomioka, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,20,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign","category-sci-fi-fantasy","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Tetsuo-II-Body-Hammer-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\/6341","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=6341"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6532,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6341\/revisions\/6532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}