Tetsuo II: Body Hammer 1999 Horror Movie Review

Two years after leaving the grungy cyberpunk calling card Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto reenters the world of flesh and metal metamorphoses with a more narratively ambitious film that is neither sequel nor remake, but a rethinking of the ideas on a bigger scale with more impressive effects. The film begins in the recognizable world of the thriller, where a young middle-class couples see their son kidnapped by mysterious hoodlums, and then takes an abrupt turn into an underworld of cybermen led by a mad scientist performing twisted experiments. The father (Tomoroh Taguchi, returning from the first film), filled with rage and shame at his powerlessness, suddenly transforms into a robotic warrior and becomes overwhelmed by the power, simultaneously terrified and ecstatic. Unlike in the original, Tsukamoto offers an explanation, for what it’s worth, but the power lies not in the story but the nightmarish imagery and the themes of the marriage of flesh and technology, metal and magic. With an ample budget at his disposal (not to mention color), Tsukamoto ups the conflict to a battle of biblical proportions while maintaining the brooding, terrifying, nightmarish quality. Tsukamoto’s gory, violent vision of technology run amok is not for everyone, but fans of David Lynch and David Cronenberg will find his dangerous visions just as creatively disturbing. —Sean Axmaker