Customer Reviews

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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...

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.

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.

After watching this movie, a small void formed in the exact center of my brain. The void began to inhale all the matter around it until a black hole had formed and my entire cranium collapsed in on itself. This movie is the most bizarre spectacle I have ever witnessed. I first saw this movie in 1996 and to this day I still can't figure the damn thing out. But I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to also have their heads implode. It's a good kind of implosion... BONUS: Most people never make it past the first ten minutes of this flick. If you watch the whole thing, it's like you're in a secret club!

You need brave tastes and a strong stomach before you strap into this ride. The plot is some nonsense about an infectious iron disease (?) but that's not important. What is important is that this film is one of the craziest films EVER. Plain and simple. It's a gross, fast paced, 45 minute, Japanese movie that will blow your mind if you let it. Be warned, this isn't for everybody, in fact, it probably isn't for most people. But if you're feeling sinister, this is the perfect grainy black and white science fiction film you'll EVER see. If this is the same copy that I bought, there's a horrible short film attached to it at the end, but you might as well watch something else because it will bore you to tears.

Do androids dream of electric sheep? Maybe. This, then, could be their nightmare. Or what passes for a bad peyote trip for them. Ferric and feral, Shinya Tsukamoto's 1989 debut, where an unassuming Salaryman (Tomoro taguchi) mutates into a bio-mechanical living weapon, is a fractured-reality must-see. Set in a neither-here-nor-there Japan only a fever-wracked noggin could hallucinate, this isn't Japan as hypermodern sci-fic megacity. Rather, it's blighted underside. Its scummy industrial backdrop is all derelict factories, corroded steel, tarnished chrome and frayed cordite. Lynchian deja vu might set in but "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" exists in its own techno-erotic purgatory, and one that gets farther under the skin than "Eraserhead" ever did. Tsukamoto's closer kindred spirit seems to be David Cronenberg. Tsukamoto seems taken with the same apocalyptic neuroses as Cronenberg : men terrorized by their own malfunctioning bodies, the evolutionary possibilities of changeling flesh. But Tsukamoto's far less arctic and cerebral. Basic instinct confronts the abstract by assigning order to the chaos. And the retina-scorching transmutations can get so out-there, you might want to believe they're metaphors: for the dichotomy between the organic and the inorganic,a familiar tsukamoto kink. Or maybe it's all a blackly comic send-up of the mechanisation of the social psyche. But such rationalizations neither deepen the mystery nor heighten the rush. Tsukamoto doesn't really want us to decipher the enigmas. It's the text, not the subtext, that matters. He's pushing a different kick: the pure, twisted and unsettling sensation of watching the Everyday splinter into the irrational, pulling us into a state of anxiety whose very lack of balance is its chief psychoactive. It's the adrenaline of entropy, the poetry of confusion. It's blood and energy, full-on. And Tsukamoto's arsenal certainly has explosive. It's like fragmentation grenades to the brain pan. It's vast. It's hyper. It's ultraviolet and futuristic. But. Tsukamoto , soon enough, ODs on his own momentum. Watching "Tetsuo:The Iron man" in one go can get as exhausting as memorizing Calculus equations while doing High-Impact Aerobics on a ton of caffeine. Everything verges on sensory overload in the final 4th. Shortcircuit. Then you crash. But before that happens, you'd have gotten your chromosomes mad-scrambled by what is still , ten years or so down the line, one of the most unforgettable chunks of weird science, death-metal nihilism and low-tech rage against the machine.

Tetsuo is not for anyone that's the least bit squeamish. For the rest of us, it is an absolute wild ride. The movie is black-and-white, hyperkinetic, and totally unique. The story makes only some sense, but it is the visuals and music that work here.

Shinyo Tsukamoto uses fast cuts, weird camera angles, and the black-and-white film to great advantage in Tetsuo. Every frame is overloaded with detail, and the metallization of people in the movie is more a weird combination of tubes, wires, and cables than anything else. Visually, this movie is unique, and Chu Ishikawa's soundtrack fits it perfectly. You will just sit there, and say something like: whoa, what the heck is going on!!

Tetsuo II is completely different; hard to believe Tsukamoto also directed it. It is worth seeing only to fill in some of the holes the first movie leaves in the story. But unfortunately, the hyperkinetics and great visuals are completely gone.

I did not give Tetsuo 5 stars because of an overly graphic section about midway through the movie; it is a humorous section initially (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it), but Tsukamoto takes it too far. Otherwise, Tetsuo is a great movie.

Testsuo: the iron man may be a difficult film for a lot of people. you will probably either love it or think in is trash. this film struck a deeply personaly chord within me, so it is difficult to write about it objectivly. as a teenager i dreamnt of a film shot in gritty black and white that would deal with terrifing and ghostly subjects. this film is it. tsukamoto is a genius for this film. the effects are low buget to the max, but when is the last time your nightmare had a big effects buget? the film actually follows a plot line somewhat resembling a Noh play, except very convoluted; the man runs the fetishist over with his car, and then has sex with his girlfriend in frount of the fetishist's broken body. because of this sexual arousal in the presense of machine induced death, the man is cursed with his sexual/physical merging with the machiene realm. the fetishist wants revenge. the visual effect of the film is beyond incredible, and the music is perfect. very few films incorporate music into the visuals as fundamentally as this one (bergman's Persona and otomo's AKIRA are also great examples). this film implanted itself into my brain like a shard of metal. keep an open mind when you watch this film, and don't jump to conclusions and judgements. if you can withstand the films attack, you will find it to be truly beautiful and rewarding.

There really isn't much to say. If you liked any of his other films, you'll like this as well. If you have no clue what this is about, you should keep an open mind and check it out. I realize this kind of film isn't for everybody, so if you are into experimental, kamikaze film making just buy this now. For those of you not into this genre, maybe you just haven't seen anything like it before, I suggest you rent this first and then decide. I only wish there were some extras on the DVD version, I guess we'll never get a commentary by Shinya. Well enjoy!

This was a very difficult film for me to watch, and I would not recommend it for the faint of heart or those that are not able to objectify films with intense amoral visual imagery. I believe that the film is saying something important, but I've never been able to say precisely what. The film maker has a real talent for letting us stroll through some of his deeper inner states. Andre Tarkovsky is the only other film maker that I've ever seen do a better job of this, and its hard to compare the two because their styles are very different. I first saw this film on VHS from a rental store in Lincoln, NE about ten years ago. About three years ago as I was trying to describe it to a film-afficiando friend of mine, I got curous about seeing it again, hopefully now on DVD. Fortunately I was able to find it and the exprience was vastly improved seeing it from a good transfer to DVD. For film buffs with an eye toward unique visual artistry, I would recommend this very gritty art-film without hesitation.