TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER (1992) Dir. Shin’ya Tsukamoto, 83 mins Suffice to say, I was a big fan of Tetsuo: The Iron Man. While it was far from director Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s debut – he has directing credits all the way back into the mid-1970s – it was a landmark movie for the director, a startling cyberpunk nightmare presented in cold black and white, and a film quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It landed a very close third in my top movies of 2020 list (movies watched in 2020, that is) and it was a close call among that top three. As such, it’s fair to say that the sequel has a good bit to live up to. Sadly, I can’t say this one hit the mark quite as successfully, despite following at least some of the same formula. In many ways it’s a more ambitious movie, with the cast of characters headed up by Tanaguchi Tomoo, his wife Kana and his son Minori. When his son is kidnapped, Tanaguchi is determined to get him back, but finds that his kidnappers are a group of metal-worshipping cultists. They proceed to capture Tanaguchi and give him an injection, with leads to a shocking cybernetic transformation for him. But the battle is far from over, and it’s not long before Kana is taken too and a climactic final struggle ensues… That might not sound too painful, of course, but somehow this one just lacked the curious charm of its predecessor for me. Maybe the black and white made the effects hold up that bit better, because while they are ambitious for the early 90s, for me they don’t look a patch on the first installment. Some of them end up looking genuinely hokey, and that rather jolted me out of things. The story was a little too busy and seemed to sort of recapitulate, and I honestly just found the whole thing too noisy and over the top and frustrating. I think this is trying to be more of an action film at times, whereas the original was far more of a body horror with less of that sort of shoot-em-up feel (though admittedly there was a little of that). For me there are too many characters involved in the story too, with the pared down cast of the first working far better. Maybe I shouldn’t keep making these kinds of comparisons, but when the same director comes back to the same universe you almost can’t help yourself. I also think the longer runtime doesn’t really help – the whole thing feels a bit spun out, whereas the bare hour of The Iron Man feels significantly tighter. Admittedly an hour and twenty minutes isn’t exactly long, it still felt like a bit of a drag. I suppose I should caveat the above by saying I don’t think this movie is terrible, but more average when you take everything into account. Of course, there is a third installment to this series, which we had to wait an awful lot longer for (The Bullet Man landed in 2010), and I will be checking that out in due course to see is Tsukamoto can recapture that absolute magic of the original. RATING: 5.5/10. I was excited for this one – the poster is absolutely great too, and that had me buzzing even more – but it didn’t land anywhere near the first for me. If you enjoyed part one it’s probably worth a look, but I would suggest tempering your expectations. It feels like a hollow imitation in many ways, and in trying to expand in runtime and develop some of the ideas from The Iron Man it ends up rather losing something. The whole metal cultists idea never really lands in my opinion, and with that being such a central part of things that’s a big stumbling block. The switch to colour for me is not a benefit, and actually harms this one. It’s all just rather messy and I couldn’t help but feel a little deflated in the end – it’s not a bad film, but it ain’t great, and sadly I was expecting it to be great… TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITETHE DAMOCLES FILES: VOLUME ONE: RAGNAROK RISING |
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