Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

Tagline: N/A
UK Running Time: 67 minutes

Film Quality: 4/5
Gore Content: 3/5
Entertainment Value: 4/5
Originality: 4.5/5

Introduction

Japanese art has always been strongly been linked to Manga, the far eastern ‘comics’ are read by adults and children alike and many dabble in the science fiction genre. Technology plays a big part in some and in the 1980s there was an explosion in popularity for animated movies based on popular Manga titles peaking with the astoundingly cinematic ‘Akira’. Several attempts were made, largely unsuccessfully, to adapt some of these into live-action movies. But it was a relatively short, underground movie called ‘Tetsuo’, created almost single-handedly by Shinya Tsukamoto, clearly influenced by a society immersed in Manga and the fast growing technology that really hit the spot.

In a nutshell

A metal fetishist is killed in a hit and run accident by a ‘salaryman’ who begins to undergo an unusual change. As if possessed by the will of the fetishist he begins to be consumed by metal, suffering increasingly bizarre and nightmarish visions until a confrontation with the reanimated fetishist leads to an apocalyptic conclusion.

So what’s good about it?

It is wildly inventive and writer, director, producer, cinematographer, editor, tea man, etc… Shin’ya Tsukamoto creates an unbelievably vivid and visceral spectacle. Tsukamoto’s background was in advertising but you could be forgiven for thinking it was in music videos as there is a beat and rhythm to the way he directs the action, particularly the terrifying chase scene by the woman at the station and subsequent attack in his garage. The film is based on an early play he wrote that he performed at school, although quite how he managed this I will never know and there is definitely an element of performance art during a number of the sequences that belies its cyber-punk leanings.

I have no idea what the budget was, clearly it was VERY low, but the effects work is, at times, superb. True, some of the grain and murky black and white photography may mask some of the cracks in the effects work but it also adds to the overall impact of the movie. Our metal fetishist (played by Tsukamoto) scours junkyards looking for pieces of metal to insert into his body, you can’t get much grittier, and the opening scene where we witness him doing that is tough to watch. As the film progresses the effects become less make-up based and more in the realm of camera trickery as stop motion effects take over. It must have taken weeks to achieve the level of detail as wires and pieces of metal combine and twist to merge the salaryman and fetishist into a singular being. It’s this bloody mindedness that caused a lot of friction between Tsukamoto and the crew over the course of the 18 month shoot which was very much a meticulous labour of love for the self-confessed schoolboy daydreamer, desperate to get his vision onto the small screen.

The editing is frenetic and exhausting to watch at times. Film is sped up, slowed down, chopped together, split apart and burned across the screen to emphasise the fragmented existence of a pre-digital Japan ready to explode in a world of ever-developing technology. There is little time to catch breath before the next set piece and what little plot there is, is just blown away by the power of the visuals and sound. Tsukamoto seems genuinely interested in the relationship, and possibly dependence on machines and technology which, looking at present day culture, is incredibly visionary.

Having talked about the visuals, the sound (the music is one of the few things NOT provided by Tsukamoto!) includes a brilliant industrial score by Chu Ishikawa. The scene where the salaryman and his girlfriend eat is overlayed with the most wonderful metallic sounds as the salaryman’s emotions and senses become consumed by metal to such an extent that he can’t bear the sound of teeth on a fork. The moment at the start when the fetishist pulls a grooved metal bar through his teeth (right) makes me cringe every time!

And what about the bad?

It is a challenge to watch and, as with many ‘arthouse’ movies, it is a case of style over substance with hardly any plot and an almost total lack of dialogue that makes ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ look a bit wordy! I personally don’t find this a negative as such but it’s a real turnoff for the casual fan. It is hard to follow and I do wonder how many people may have gone into having read the synopsis, thinking it was going to be a Paul Verhoeven style action epic and switched off after 20 minutes. It has its audience and I don’t think I fully understood what the hell was going on until I’d watched it for the fourth or fifth time so it does require a hell of a lot of effort to get anything out of it. I suppose it’s like many of the best things in life, you get out of it what you put in.

Any themes?

There is a lot to take out of it relating to the relationship between man and machine, or more specifically man and metal. It is one of man’s greatest engineering achievements, the automobile, that sets in place the origin of the metamorphosis. It takes the electric razor to encourage the first few bits of metal out of the salaryman’s face and the fetishist’s aim is to consume the world with metal and turn it to rust. It’s hugely apocalyptic and in that sense it has a lot in common with many Japanese Manga stories that use metamorphosis and technology as the driving force towards bringing about the end of the world.

There is a lot of sexual imagery within the film as well. The fetishist is intent on inserting phallic pieces of metal into vaginal wounds and what a bizarre choice of music to accompany the car accident! Seductive saxophone music plays over the top of soft focus images of the car, filmed in a way that sexualises the whole experience. The salaryman has a horrific dream here his girlfriend dances very exotically, growing a metallic probe (left) which she uses to rape him and of cause there’s the sledgehammer metaphor as his penis turns into a drill with which he accidentally impales his girlfriend. Just as the fetishist sexualises his own body in the context of metal, so does Tsukamoto in the context of what happens to the salaryman and his increasingly bizarre visions.

Tsukamoto has very clearly been inspired by the work of David Cronenberg, in particular the brilliant ‘Videodrome’. Both films deal with the literal change of the body, being turned into a biomechanical weapon whilst sexualising elements of the experience in a disturbingly masochistic way. When he’s confronted by the lady at the train station (right) and looks down at her hand it bears a resemblance to James Woods’ hand when it assimilates the gun. Both films deal with the distinction between what is real and what is imagined as the lead characters try to make sense of what is happening to them. The end of ‘Videodrome’ (I really must get round to giving that ‘The Horror Video’ treatment!) is apocalyptic (“Long live the new flesh”) suggesting a wider implication to his own personal change, very similar to the fetishists final desire to “Turn this world to rust”.

One final thing that isn’t immediately obvious is the familiar ‘angry, vengeful spirit’ theme of many a Japanese horror movie. The fetishist is killed and dumped in a ravine, suddenly the salaryman becomes possessed and haunted by the fetishist, cursed if you like. This echoes themes that were later developed more literally as ghost stories in ‘Ringu’, ‘Ju-On’ and ‘Pulse’ where the vengeful personality of the individual is let loose on the person or people who encounter it.

Release history

There have been no issues relating to censorship but there is a version released on DVD that is 10 minutes longer than the standard 67 minute release, brought out in 2010 to coincide with the release of ‘Tetsuo: Bullet Man’, the third instalment. None of the new material was edited due to violence or sexual content and, presumably, these were edited out of the original cut to preserve the efficiency of the running time rather than inserted to create an extended version.

The only place you will find an official blu ray version is in the UK where Third Window released it on a single disc with its sequel ‘Tetsuo: Body Hammer’ and a second DVD with one of Tsukamoto’s earlier shorts, interviews and trailers. The version included on this disc is the standard 67 minute version and its restoration was personally supervised by Tsukamoto which suggest that this is his preferred version.

Cultural Impact

Fairly minimal other than its ongoing status as a cult film. It owes more to the work of David Cronenberg and David Lynch than any other body of work owing it a debt but it was one of the first attempts at realising a live action Manga. This approach has become more popular over the years with big budget Hollywood productions of ‘The Guyver’, Dragonball Evolution’ and more recently ‘Ghost in the Shell’ and ‘Death Note’. It’s such an obscurity that there really isn’t very much written about the film but it is held in high regard amongst cult film fans, those with an interest in body horror and extreme Asian cinema.

The film spawned two sequels, neither of which quite capture the ferocity and originality of the first film and were made with bigger budgets. They were more different realisations of the same theme than direct sequels. Nine Inch Nails contributed some original music to ‘Bullet Man’ which you can look up on YouTube…it really is some incredibly harsh industrial music, reminiscent of some of the material produced by Trent Reznor during his ‘Downward Spiral’ period.

Final Thoughts

It’s not often that you can call a film ‘one of a kind’ but it certainly applies here. Some of the themes such as body horror and sexual fetishes have been dealt with elsewhere by other directors but rarely as viscerally and with such flair as Tsukamoto delivers here. It’s certainly not for everyone and if you’re put off by some of Cronenberg and Lynch’s weirder material then you haven’t got a prayer of getting through this one…it is anything but accessible but if you like a spot of challenging cinema that is an all out assault on the senses then look no further!

You’ll like this is you enjoyed…

‘Videodrome’, ‘Eraserhead’, ‘Akira’, ‘Hardware’