Tetsuo the Iron Man (1989)

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Screenplay: Shinya Tsukamoto

Cast: Tomorowo Taguchi as the Salaryman; Kei Fujiwara as the Girlfriend; Nobu Kanaoka as the Woman in Glasses; Shinya Tsukamoto as the Metal Fetishist; Naomasa Musaka as the Doctor; Renji Ishibashi as the Tramp

An Abstract Candidate

 

Our love can destroy this fuckin' world!

Coming to the film which stands out as a metal behemoth in Shinja Tsukamoto's career, his theatrical debut after the films made with his Kaijyu Theatre, I will gladly argue he has amassed an amazing number of masterpieces in his career, with so many layers to those he would make in the decades on. Tetsuo the Iron Man, a “Regular Sized Monster Series” production, is by itself however a true one-off, which you can return to and detonates with an incredible power to it. Even here, layers can be found in terms of this tale of a man’s transformation into metal, not just the obvious one of urbanisation and modern technology as a source of anxiety, something which will be returned to in multiple ways in this director-writer’s career. For starters, the body is a fixation as would be the case onwards, as we encounter a fetishist of metal (Tsukamoto himself) who has cut outs of athletes (track and field) among his coils and scrap in his hovel. Unfortunately, inserting metal into his own leg, the wound becomes infected and full of maggots after a while, and in his panic hobbling for help outside he is run over.

Tetsuo is also subdued in its pace for a chunk of its length - for those unaware of this film, Tsukamoto after a pair of short films created this independent production with collaborators, from their Kaijyu Theatre team, a film which will eventually kick into a hyper intensity but to its credit slowly waits before bolting for the rest of its hour plus length. The fetishist takes his revenge on the salary man (Tomorowo Taguchi) who ran him over, starting to turn into a metal machine man himself and already having an encounter with a woman who, turned into a monster, made the ill advised mistake to stab a weird bio-scrap thing on the subway floor with her pen. With Taguchi to his credit having to work in a giant suit of scrap metal, what can be at times like an ultra violent brawl out of a Power Rangers, shot in the streets of Japan, is yet also a legendary cult film regarded for how distinct and intense it is, a bolt out of the blue when it was released at the end of the eighties in Japanese cinema which caught on globally.

The film is legendary for its intense editing, for Chu Ishikawa's intense industrial score, its monochrome look, and moments which can be incredibly disturbing but forgotten until revisiting the film, such as an entire stop motion moment of a man being broken down (even his skull and flesh) into living wires and machinery in a stop motion sequence, but this can also be subdued, prickling in what is to come with cuts to factory machinery and snippets of Ishikawa's music, taking its time. Even our salaryman's transformation is banal, suddenly the first concern to merely a spike found sticking outward from his cheek when shaving. It can be strange, such as the scene where he merely repeating the same thing over and over on a phone to someone, and it can be funny on purpose. Even the score gets into the tonal change as you can also get sultry jazz sax when the fetishist is hit by the car in the first place, which I secretly hoped that was Chu Ishikawa too playing the instrument.

Throughout the one thing you do not get from the later film is this film’s more playful nature, even in scenes which are meant to be shocking or disarming, such as how that music returns for a proudly homoerotic love between two enemies, the gender subversions and ideas of the body Tsukamoto would elaborate on in his further films already here but matched by the energy of a homemade low budget film which set the bar higher than most for how well made and precise it was. Little details with hindsight cause it to have more edge over other good cult films like this, such as Kei Fujiwara as the lead's girlfriend, who though with a horrifying conclusion to her tale not a damsel not in the least. Partially this is with knowledge that Fujiwara herself, who would go on to direct two cult films in dire need of re-appreciation, was the co-cinematographer on the film with Tsukamoto and a collaborator, alongside how the character in how she is portrayed, the salaryman himself not an innocent in his crimes, is not a conventional archetype. There is even a fantasy scene of her character dancing like in a pagan ritual before a phallic tentacle she is wearing between her legs, like a vacuum cleaner tube, participates in explicit pegging long before the infamous penis drill of the film appears.

Whilst this is a mood piece for a large part of it, little pieces like this, or the sexual licking and castration of a sausage with metal sounds over the noises, do come across showing more to the film over multiple watches, alongside a sense of humour and whimsy that would leave as Tsukamoto would continue. “Whimsy” is an odd choice of word for Tetsuo, but considering this ends with a hybrid man-tank storming the streets of urban Tokyo, the creation of two figures loving each other wishing to rust the world into metal, it is perversely the best choice of word when returning to the film. The deliberateness of the plot, never explaining the transformation of man into metal, does not mean either there is complexity either, as flashbacks to the fetishist’s past which bleed in, such as about a piece of metal in his brain, can be caught out as abrupt and disrupting the plot in first watches, and fire up the imagination when you eventually put together the film over multiple viewings.

As much as I love what Tsukamoto became, this film as the climax of his Kaijyu Theatre work does feel of its own existence, as I miss the stop motion he brought in to this film for its effects, the speeding up effects to make himself and other actors travel at supersonic speed down streets gliding along, and that this does show itself as a genre film which has all the imagination of this type of low budget and creative cinema, not just from Japan, at its most impactful. Thankfully the unpredictability that you get here, and grows as the film goes along, grew in the director’s other work as these traits started to ebb away. Tetsuo the Iron Man is also still an audio-visual experience which has not lost its power – later Tsukamoto films still retained this, Tokyo Fist arguably his best work and matching the intensity (with Chu Ishikawa’s craft) to his greater focus on human drama, but this is nonetheless able to retain its power even after multiple watches.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Grotesque/Kinetic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): High

The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo (1987)

 

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Screenplay: Shinya Tsukamoto

Cast: Nariaki Senba as Denchu Kozo; Nobu Kanaoka as Sariba Sensei; Kei Fujiwara as Future Eve; Shinya Tsukamoto as Kondo; Tomorô Taguchi as Hijikata; Mitsuru Saga as Okita; Kenji Nasa as Ryoma Sakamoto

Canon Fodder

 

Before Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Shinji Tsukamoto was part of Kaijyu Theatre, the future film production company of his originally a tent where Tsukamoto, wanting to act more, performed plays of his and collaborators in what looked like a sex monster as a tent, hence “kaijyu” after the Japanese for “sea monster”. The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo, or The Adventures of Electric Rod Boy, was one of the first micro-features as a director Tsukamoto helmed based on plays of theirs, following the aforementioned teen boy born with a giant electrical pylon growing out of his back. Bullied, he is however protected by Momoko, a female friend who out of gratitude he offers a homemade time machine to her only to be sucked into a time wormhole himself.

This takes him into a future where vampires have turned civilization into a post-apocalypse where they rule the world, showing the ingenuity which would be found throughout Tetsuo here already. It is, for a forty minute plot, a delirious production in itself, where the vampires created “Adam Junior”, which allowed them to envelop the sky in darkness twenty five years from where our lead was taken from. Now they need to develop Adam Special for more power, before the sunlight returns, and it allows collaborator Kei Fujiwara to act as the virginal "Future Eve", reaching puberty, part of Adam Special who they are waiting to mature and allow her to become an encompassing and powerful force on their side. A female teacher there will help Denchu-Kozo, as well as another time travelling rod boy, in what is a delirious work which is proudly over-the-top in tone. I think how there is a child choir at one point, like a Japanese animated series from the seventies, emphasizes the more playful tone to this to later Tsukamoto films which is its own virtue, still with its foot in a type of storytelling that would not really be found in his later work. Humour can still be found, but he became serious in a great way, leaving this a rare work with a more absurd tone.

Even more a low budget indie production next to Tetstuo, with a young Tsukamoto looking like a Visual Kei band member alongside regular lead actor Tomorô Taguchi, this however presents already the fascinating creativity in terms of visuals and sounds he explored. The use of manipulating the screen, where actors are “moved” in stop motion outside to show rapid speed, is used here for the chase sequences, whilst the home made quality of the props is found, especially with Adam Special as a strange melding of sexuality and body horror which feels like a prototype to later Tsukamoto. This, absolutely, has tonal choices which left his filmography, but are admirable in the vast contrast to before, such as the abrupt use of Japanese punk music, or how the end credits is animated illustration of electric rod people which feels like a weird experimental anime made by one person in its presence.

It also still tells a story, which a dramatic conclusion with pathos, which does feel closer to his later work, including the surprising changes that came where drama became more important to Tsukamoto as well as the prominence of female characters as important (and even central) figures in his work, already present here. It is an early work,  in the sense that his style would become more refined even in the later film, less likely to have the eccentricities here such as having the vampires living in an apartment (for budgetary reasons) covered on the walls in softcore erotic photos. It does however like the best early work, even the best ultra low budget work, have the creativity and unpredictability I have to admire immensely even if I did not appreciate the director already.

Tetsuo The Bullet Man (2009)

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Screenplay: Shinya Tsukamoto and Hisakatsu Kuroki

Cast: Eric Bossick as Anthony; Akiko Monô as Yuriko; Yûko Nakamura as Mitsue; Stephen Sarrazin as Ride; Tiger Charlie Gerhardt as Tom; Prakhar Jain as Elliott; Shinya Tsukamoto as The Guy

In the year of my birth 1989, Shinya Tsukamoto made his theatrical debut Tetsuo the Iron Man, causing a seismic wave across the globe. In 1992, after a failed attempt at being a commercial filmmaker (Hiruko The Goblin (1991)), Tsukamoto made Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer which is held in as high regard. Come 2009, after a career of huge highs (Tokyo Fist (1995), Bullet Ballet (1998), A Snake in June (2002)), and another stint in more mainstream filmmaking, he returns to the Tetsuo world with a film premiered at the 2009 Venice Film Festival....

...it has been effectively deleted from cultural memory. The Bullet Man is in itself a culmination of an English language adaptation, leading to Tsukamoto instead deciding to have his new Tetsuo whilst set in Japan have an American character Anthony (Eric Bossick), living in the country with his wife Yuriko (Akiko Monô). It is effectively remaking The Body Hammer as the catalyst as the murder of their young son is the same shocking incident here too, revealing a secret side of him when the mild mannered foreign salaryman starts transmogrifying into a blackened metal machine man. Tsukamoto himself, again as the antagonist for the third time in this series, is a hacker who wants to reveals Anthony's true origins through his father's work.

The immediate thing of note is that, whilst there is Japanese spoken dialogue, a lot of this film is in English. It's stilted at times, though this isn't like strange experience Sukiyaki Western Django (2007), a pulpy western by Takashi Miike with phonetically spoken English by the whole cast, where there is some Japanese dialogue and actors like Bossick, whose career is actually found more in videogame acting like the Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid franchises. Instead the result is that some are left strained by the creative choice, like actress Akiko Monô who is struggling with the language barrier, whilst others like Tsukamoto himself feel more comfortable even if it's still an odd choice, in his case helped by his surprisingly good history of onscreen performances in his belt since his first film Tetsuo The Iron Man. I think some of the dialogue is ridiculous and where some of the problems with this choice stand out instead. The Bullet Man at times is less the conclusion of this incredible series, but closer to a lurid nineties anime released by Manga Entertainment in the nineties with a cheesy English dub.

For myself, coming to The Bullet Man with lowered expectations, the issues that stand out in reviews is a) the English language dub, b) the low budget digital camera, and c) that this has the most structurally conventional plot with some lore. I will argue the low budget digital camera is not an issue even if there are moments of excessive shaky camera in scenes which can be disorientating to extreme. In fact, I would argue this brings the film to the modern day when one of the virtues of the original Tetsuo: The Iron Man was that it was the cinematic equivalent of placing one's head in a garbage compactor. It was a cheap and resourceful film which used oil for blood, rewarding for its disorientating chaos which is transferred to The Bullet Man by the stark use of a digital camera. This also feels in hindsight a test run for Kotoko (2011). His film after, a psychological drama that becomes a horror tale about a psychologically ill mother, Kotoko is much higher regarded but also deploys this stark aesthetic style as well, the starkness and habit of shaking the camera become a toll for putting the viewer on edge between these two films.

Plot wise, I think for myself the real issue with The Bullet Man is that it feels like a regression of a director that for all his reputation for intensity grew into the least expected humane film maker. Oddly, in his industrial sound tracked and violent films, even at The Body Hammer Tsukamoto became fixated on the human condition in all its forms over a string of incredible films, literalising everything from grief to rage to desire through literalising them physically and without sacrificing the emotional core.  There a semblance of this eventually in The Bullet Man, but there is definitely felt more the vein of a conventional "cult" film on the surface when it is getting into an abandoned military project and revenge, tropes Tsukamoto could tackle but felt more the kind of detail in a generic Japanese pulp film imported to the West on DVD than from him. Some of it is the kind of material he could tackle with haunting detail, [MAJOR SPOILER] like the fact Anthony's mother was already dead and resurrected as a form of android before conceiving him [SPOILER ENDS], alongside the fact that this is still a story of a man overcoming the grief of losing his son and having clearly had to suppress rage due to his father's overprotective attitude, something I will get to a bit later in more detail.

The other aspect of Tsukamoto's growth was that, at Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer no less, his female characters grew in depth and how they were treated, to the point they were usually the person most sympathetic of the cast, even the one person who has a euphoric conclusion with Tokyo Fist. Even the original Tetsuo film, with the infamous penis drill, has the detail that the actress in that film Kei Fujiwara was the co-cinematographer with Tsukamoto himself, a distinct figure onscreen who also became a director I wished made more films¹. (She also helped put together that penis drill, so she at least had work with the prop in her infamous scene in the film²). I'm glad The Bullet Man itself led to Kotoko with singer Cocco, but ooh this felt like a step back in terms of Akiko Monô playing a really generic wife figure, whose only depth is needing revenge and also being in peril. It is a bad regression even next to Tsukamoto's first film, where Fujiwara was at least striking in her role.

Why I wish The Bullet Man was not buried culturally however is that, for all the flaws, there is so much to show that Tsukamoto is still a bar higher than most filmmakers even at his weakest, a director who mostly made his own independent work with a strong visual eye. His work has ideas and is so intense he makes most cult films anaemic even with this, one of his weakest films. Little details, like his own face distorted on a computer screen, manically laughing as an email reveals Anthony his origins, are enough as visual motifs Tsukamoto has always been good with in keeping a viewer on edge. That intensity, which puts him on a higher level than most cult directors from Japan, is even found here with editing the slices the visual flesh and wounds a viewer.

The music is also, as always, a great tool of his, the late Chu Ishikawa finishing the Tetsuo trilogy with his calamitous work, the audio equivalent of a metal recycling plant. Notable Nine Inch Nails provided a main theme of noise transforming into air siren-like triumphant bridges. It is an instrumental of unconventional beauty, and arguably of importance as not only was it a goal finally completely between both groups, but one of the first times Trent Reznor with Atticus Ross producing a track for a film. This would lead to a beautiful and ongoing friendship between The Social Network (2010) to even Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's television documentary series The Vietnam War (2017), so we could thank Shinji Tsukamoto for helping begin this relationship among other factors.

The practical design is also exceptional still, especially as being inspired by old Japanese genre films Tsukamoto even called his studio Kaijyu Theater after giant monster movies, Tsukamoto never hiding the handmade quality of his films' practical effects. Eric Bossick is okay as a lead, but the literal Bullet Man is a thing of disturbing beauty, both sleek in his black metal form which grows the more he is wounded, but also a literal human weapon combined with a id of rage being literalised by guns spurting out of injuries to fire back. Whilst it is not to be everyone's cup of tea, when The Bullet Man jumps into noise and screaming and delirious practical effects, it feels less like the cheesiness of a film like Tokyo Gore Police (2008) from the era, a rubbery gore experience, but a tangible brutal experience.

Thankfully, after this Tsukamoto after a period of absence in the Western consciousness returned with pride. This was the era he started restoring his own work, released in the United Kingdom through Third World Pictures (and Arrow Video in the USA in the 2020s), helping his reputation considerably alongside a string of films which got attention through the likes of Third Window. If anything, The Bullet Man is a flawed film, especially when against another pure genre work of his like Haze (2005), which is abstract and striped down to an extreme, it feels lesser to. It is still a tier higher than most work because it is from Shinji Tsukamoto however. Rather than hiding it as an embarrassment, Tetsuo The Bullet Man deserves to be brought up as a curiosity in his work.

Abstract Spectrum: Chaotic/Psychotronic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

=======

1) Organ (1996) and the even stranger Ido (2005) deserve to be restored and made more easily avaible. They are two films that buckle the trend of "safe" filmmaking whilst showing her personal voice. Organ is a ninety lurid Japanese pulp film which manages to be more gross and uncomfortable than most, grimy body horror, whilst being uniquely surreal at many points. Ido, originating from a sequel to Organ, pulls in her history with theatre in a bizarre mindmelter of Buddhist theology, lurid body horror and batshit weirdness as Fujiwara herself turns into a pig monster at some point.

2) "For the latter, Tsukamoto just wanted to make something simple and said it would be enough if we could just pretend like it was moving, but I thought it would only be interesting if it actually moved. I didn’t have any hi-tech skills, so I thought, “That’s it!” I took the nearest working electric fan, dissembled it down to its core, used all the rubber and tape I had at home, sprayed it up and got it to go, vroom [laughs]!!" - Kei Fujiwara [LINK HERE]

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992)

From http://teniesonline.ucoz.com/_ld/109/97184257.jpg

Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto

Having never written a thing about my thoughts on the Tetsuo films on any personal blog or film community site, and this is bearing in mind I have yet to see the third film Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009), the obvious way forward would to cover the original Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989). But revisiting the films it's the second that I was compelled to see again first. The Iron Man is a film that I hold highly, having seen many times. Body Hammer is a film I've only seen once many years ago, the more mysterious to visit as it took on a very different tone as a continuation of the first. The film could be seen as a remake but it becomes a vastly different work. What effects viewing it is that Body Hammer lifts plot tropes from the first film, but the results are different altogether. Shot in colour and with a more structured narrative, a salary man Taniguchi Tomoo (Tomorowo Taguchi)and his wife Kana (Nobu Kanaoka) are terrorised by two bald men who shoot the husband with a mysterious gun that causes mutation. After a tragedy with their son, the husband transforms into an Iron Man like in the first film, an experiment lead by Yatsu (director Shinya Tsukamoto) with a scientist and his lair of musclemen to make a gun that can unlock the Iron Men in anyone shot with it.

From http://www.cineoutsider.com/reviews/pix/t/te/tetsuo22.jpg

The original Iron Man is, to nick the title of a film podcast, a "no-budget nightmare", a 16mm film that pushes as far as it can as an experience in terms of practical effects and camera and editing techniques on a low budget, the nightmare being the result of depicting a man transforming into machine and metal with gruesome results. With Body Hammer, as the husband and wife are continually molested until the former transforms into a violent entity with gun barrels sticking out of his chest, the result is an entirely different creation. I had always thought Tokyo Fist (1995), the film I hold as the director's best alongside The Iron Man, was the transitional feature In Shinya Tsukamoto's career. Tsukamoto has depicted the brutal and visceral, but his films continually changed in tone. Greater emotional content was added as well as a greater emphasis on female characters including them being the main characters, whilst not losing the original violence, only filtering it in more psychological or more esoteric forms. After The Iron Man, the director made Hiruko The Goblin (1991), which I might love now but was a commercial mainstream film which has left a dead end in Tsukamoto's filmography, and then came Body Hammer, which is in revisiting it the first signs of what the director's other films onwards would be like.

From http://www.horrorphile.net/images/tetsuo-ii-body-hammer-metal-man1.jpg

The transition shown in Body Hammer's content makes it a more difficult film to digest. One half if the original style of the first film - the stop motion, the rapid editing techniques and extensive use of sound and music - the other is a new emphasis on scenes of drama and moments of serenity, seeing the emotions felt by the central couple as the events take place, the two sides melding further in the later films. All tinged in a blue palette, the use of colour replaces the stark nature of the first film with a more moody tone that includes moments of the first, like a car chase which involves rocket feet that allow one individual to climb the side of buildings. As a Tetsuo film, the inspiration of kaiju films and sci-fi is still felt, in witnessing giant walking scrap heaps with men's faces fight each other, arm cannons and minions with ridiculously large plate metal costumes worn for protective purposes, but this is more than the director's original plan to make an urban action sci-fi. The violence and body horror mutation is effected by added characterisation, a back-story of lost memories of the protagonist which flesh out the world of the Tetsuo films and brings further moods to the piece. The emotions of the main characters, including the greater emphasis on the wife's position in the film, adds further. The sexuality of the first film is as well given a further tinge with a homoerotic tone of bare chested, sweaty bodybuilders in Yatsu's iron foundry lair. The aspects this film has to share with the first, including how the final fight plays out in places, do affect it, weighing it down with comparisons to The Iron Man, but the new emphasis on drama has an immense effect in changing Body Hammer into a very different continuation of the premise.

From http://megashara.com/screenshots/1332881
__tetsuo_ii_body_hammer.avi_003106680.jpg

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

Because of the tonal shift, there is less emphasis on an abstract tone, especially as the content of the first Tetsuo movie was as much about the abrasive filmic structure and the visceral being married together, whilst the emphasis on drama and calmer sequences between the action changes Body Hammer significantly. But that doesn't mean it completely ditches the abstract content. There are still scenes where the visuals and audio content, including the score by Chu Ishikawa, take over and create a total sensitory effect on the viewer like with the first film. The most significant example is near the end with a "mind meld" sequence that goes to a molecular level, rapid images of biological and psychological images that are so carefully structure that the clip was used in Mark Cousin's film documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011) and compared to Abel Gance. The more quiet sequences also have a dreamy mood to them, such as a tranquil scene at a gym swimming pool, which evokes the later more drama based films like A Snake Of June (2002) and Vital (2004). The final scenes of Body Hammer also become more abstract than The Iron Man, whose meaning will tease my thoughts for a while.

From http://static.kinokopilka.tv/system/images/screenshots/
images/000/155/500/155500_original.jpg

Personal Opinion:

Tetsuo: The Iron Man is the best film of the two I've seen, (Tetsuo: The Bullet Man notwithstanding yet to be seen), but Tetsuo II: Body Hammer proved to be underrated, a minor work in comparison but still very strong considering the context of when it was made. It marks the moment where the director I admire went from The Iron Man and continued to be as good as that film in a very different way onward.