Tetsuo II: Body Hammer

Tetsuo II: The body hammer has a really cool title and after seeing the first one, I was very excited to watch it. Unfortunately I was very disappointed. Tetsuo II like many other reviewers have noted, spends a lot more time developing a plot.

What is the plot? Tetsuo's son and eventually himself and his wife get captured by some guys who are keen on cyber implants. While captured they hook up a helmet to Tetsuo's head that let's them choose what memories he thinks of. They decide to kill tetsuo but tetsuo gets angry and kills them instead. Other stuff happens too.

What does this movie have to do with the original? Absolutely nothing! The original was a stunning visual story about a man transforming into metal. It was so abstract, the plot was up to interpretation, but most importantly it was fast paced and constantly challenging the viewer with fucked up imagery. In the second film Tetsuo apparently didn't go on a killing spree with his friend (as they mutually decided to at the end of the first film) In fact Tetsuo is now a family man with a wife and kid, and his enemy/friend from the first film (like everything else from the first film) doesn't even get mentioned.

The biggest problem with Tetsuo II is that the fast pace of the first film was abbandoned. Now scenes last a long time and there is hardly any cool imagery. Remember all the amazing stop motion from the first film that looked as though it would have taken a lot of effort to accomplish? Apparently the director got sick of all the time and effort of stop motion, because this film, although it obviously has a higher budget than the first, has about a third of the stop motion.

I believe Tetsuo I was such a sucess because even though the director didn't have a clear idea of the plot, the outstanding and inventive visuals carried the loose plot to interesting places. Tetsuo II on the other hand focused on a conventional plot without developing an interesting story first, resulting in a crappy incredable hulk rip off.

If you saw the first Tetsuo you might as well see this, but don't expect much.

two stars out of four

A brilliant re-imagining of Shinya Tsukamoto's 1989 cult classic now with more story, more special effect and a bigger budget. Body Hammer is my favorite movie in the tetsuo series because it's expanded more with the story while keeping the storyline same and doing something new.

The effects are unique and uniquely unreal, as they were in the original. This is one filmmaker's nightmares rendered real. These two films, along with Lynch's Eraserhead, are the real deal. The cutting is fast so as to cause many (already extreme) shots to register on the subconscious more than the seeing eye. It will haunt you.

This is truly a worthy sequel that is a worth to watch.

I will rate this movie: highly watch this movie out of 10.

Whereas the first Tetsuo was a sweaty, psycho-sexual fever dream, Body Hammer feels like an attempt to make things more approachable. There's more of an over-arching plot, there's a (very) bare bones attempt at explaining why the things on the screen are happening, and the movie is in color with a much larger cast. Don't get me wrong, if the first movie didn't exist, this would still stand out as a bizarre a surreal film. There's some of the same impressive stop motion (though much less than the first film), a young child dies violently 20 minutes in, and the overall tone is a confusion of dark and distressing events. That being said, the first film revels in dragging the audience through a non-stop barrage of inscrutable set pieces on its spiral into fetishistic destruction. Body Hammer on the other hand, has some sequences that feel right out of a tokusatsu movie, with people in giant metal muffins and rubber suits shooting gun arms at each other. The first movie doesn't give you a chance to think about anything except for what's happening on the screen in the moment. Body Hammer has enough down time that the plot holes start to stack up. An entire group of characters just inexplicably disappear for the second third of the movie. In the end, is Body Hammer a remake? Is it a sequel? I think it's more of just another stab at a similar idea using some of the same cast. Worth a watch, but firmly in the shadow of its predecessor.

The bad things here: repetitive music, shaky cam, most of the action takes place in scenes where the light is obscured a lot. There is only one sound for the protagonist.

The good stuff: manic overacting, great VFX, Shinya Tsukamoto as the main villain, insane sweaty buff monks. Lots of body horror albeit a bit light.

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer is Tsukamoto's Evil Dead II, a sequel that reworks the original with more technical polish on a larger budget. There's a big thematic shift from the erotic to the militaristic, with a greater focus on biogenetic weaponry, one that's far less frantic, instead focusing on developing its characters and providing them with a narrative to inhabit. The production values are much higher than that of its predecessor with Tsukamoto's head-spinning experimentation still on full display, the move away from monochrome allowing him to add strong colour filtration to a heady visual brew of crazy editing and bizarre cinematography. Shinya Tsukamoto is a man who knows what he's doing at this point. Ultimately while Tetsuo II: Body Hammer may lack the more disturbing elements of the original, the eccentricities are still here; filled with some excellent sequences and something to say about industrialisation while incorporating some top-notch effects work, leaving it as a very solid piece of filmmaking and a prime example of confrontational underground Japanese Cyperpunk cinema.