Product Details

• Actors: Kei Fujiwara, Tomorowo Taguchi, Nobu Kanaoka, Shin'ya Tsukamoto, Naomasa Musaka
• Directors: Shin'ya Tsukamoto
• Writers: Shin'ya Tsukamoto
• Producers: Shin'ya Tsukamoto
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• VHS Release Date: October 16, 1997
• Run Time: 67 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302732824
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,657 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Shinya Tsukamoto draws on the marriage of flesh and technology that inspires so much of David Cronenberg's work and then twists it into a manga-influenced cyberpunk vision. A man (Tomoroh Taguchi) awakens from a nightmare in which his body is helplessly fusing with the metal objects around him, only to find it happening to him in real life... or is it? Haunted by memories of a hit and run (eerily prophetic of Cronenberg's Crash), the man knows this ordeal could be a dream, a fantastic form of divine retribution, or perhaps technological mutation born of guilt and rage. Shot in bracing black and white on a small budget, Tsukamoto puts a demented conceptual twist on good old-fashioned stop-motion effects and simple wire work, giving his film the surreal quality of a waking dream with a psychosexual edge (resulting in the film's most disturbing scene). The story ultimately takes on an abstract quality enhanced by the grungy look and increasingly wild images as they take to the streets in a mad chase of technological speed demons. This first entry in his self-titled "Regular Sized Monster Series" is followed by a full-color sequel, Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, which trades the muddy experimental atmosphere for a big-budget sheen but can't top the cybershock to the system this movie packs. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars New Tartan DVD sounds great, looks terrible!, August 12, 2005

By 

Ronnie Sortor (Springfield, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tetsuo - The Iron Man (Special Edition) (DVD)

The rating is for the lousy transfer of the new Tartan DVD release. TETSUO is one of my top-ten favorite movies of all time. Purchasing this new release represented a quadruple-dip on this title. First was a bootleg vhs tape back in the early 90's followed by the official Fox-Lorber tape, then the first DVD. The main reason, other than my love for the movie, for buying again was for the new 5.1 sound mix because TETSUO has a great soundtrack. Tartan did a great job with the remix. I love it! It's really impressive in my home theater. But the image doesn't live up to the audio, especially projected on my big screen. It looks like they just did a cheap transfer of the PAL master (Tartan is a UK company, I believe) to NTSC because it's riddled with artifacts like ghosting during fast movements (there's a lot of that in this film) and the image is very soft and contrasty. The old Fox-Lorber DVD from '98 has more image detail, especially in shadows, and none of that ugly ghosting. I assumed that since it's 2005 now and most DVD companies have kept up with the state of the art, knowing that audiences are more discriminating about audio/video quality, Tartan would live up to our expectations. But, no.
I see that there are several sellers dumping their old discs here at Amazon. I recommend that you just pick up one of those rather than Tartan's shameless release...

43 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A horror film about being gay in Japan..., January 14, 2002

By 

Dan Seitz "cinnatusc" (Somerville, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tetsuo: The Ironman (DVD)

First of all, let me state something that nobody seems to want to say explicitly; this is one unnerving movie with some of the most unpleasant scenes I've ever seen, and that includes Cronenberg. Also, there's an undeniable homoerotic subtext to the whole thing (and I'm not inferring; it's pretty clear, despite the lousy subtitle job Image subcontracted out.)

As far as comparisons go, this is a lot like the work of Jan Svankmajer, in terms of effects and narrative feel (and I suspect Tsukamoto knows the work of Svankmajer well.) But the material is about as far from Svankmajer's social concerns as you can get.

I don't claim to know Japanese society that well, but I DO know it wasn't (and still isn't) nearly as tolerant as the US, and "Tetsuo" is a strong reflection of that. The main character is a man who is torn apart by guilt over a crime he has committed, and also for his failure to conform to societal standards. He is terrified of women, and he also resents them (epitomized in two extremely gory and unnerving scenes.) And because, one feels, that he's told that he's unnatural and inhuman, he BECOMES unnatural and inhuman, literally an iron man.

This is not a upbeat story; this is a story about a man who has destroyed himself and achieves the power to take the society that caused it down with him. Even finding love isn't enough for him. This is a movie about a man who is twisted and warped by society, and who will destroy everyone thanks to that society.

Personally, I found it fascinating, but unless you've explored Jan Svankmajer, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, and others extensively, I would be careful about approaching this. Put it this way; if you weren't bugged by "Crash" but found it interesting, "Tetsuo" won't be too much for you.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars violence is a little over the top, but a real experience, November 21, 2001

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tetsuo: The Iron Man [VHS] (VHS Tape)

let me start out by saying that most people should not see this movie or even try to. if you think that you can just turn it off when it gets disturbing and forget about it, you're sadly mistaken, because when you've seen just one sick part you'll be pretty revolted for a good amount of time even if you shut it off that second. this is only for people who enjoy art that is basically a shot at convention and a sort of revelry in surreal and disturbing imagery without necessarily needing a coherent or logical storyline, and if you're not among those people, stay far, faaaaaar away. for film students and people inclined to surrealistic/philosophical/absurdist art, this is an absolute necessity. the thing i loved about 'tetsuo' is that after the whole admittedly odd film, i came away with a feeling of having really aesthetically experienced something:a descent into the bizarre and the taboo that i felt concluded on a note of vitality and defiance that is touching. "we can put an end to this...world!", one of the 'metal men' screams to the other. it is not a pointless exercise in gore or depravity, but a frantic and urgent exhortation to fight against the dehumanization that is inevitable in a mechanistic, nightmarish, high-tech civilization. in a sense these two unfortunate victims of an insane and impersonal society do something positive with their horrendous fates, in that they set aside their petty personal battle and heroically turn what has destroyed and mutilated them against itself and thereby become more human than when they were both simply flesh and blood. of course, this is only my individual interpretation, but i feel pretty certain that the message of this movie is along those lines. one the other hand, i did feel some of the scenes were needlessly disgusting and that the director inadvertently made a lot of the movie so repugnant that what could have been a real, universally recognized cult classic will only be accessible to the toughest and most philosophically sensitive people out there, which are few indeed--too few for 'tetsuo' to ever gain even the slightest notoriety or communicate it's worthy message to the majority of viewers. even lynch, who i also have a great deal of admiration for, knows that while he can get away with a great deal of scenes that are utterly perverse and sadomasochistic because of his incredible flair for the surreal and mysterious, he has to let his viewers come up for air every once in awhile and take that unfortunate but absolutely necessary reversion to the mundane without which the subtlety indispensable to a great film is lost. but for those who love the artistic creation of really disturbing but beautifully artificial realities, this movie will be a gem and certainly a must buy. so in that sense, 'tetsuo' is one of the best movies of our time.