Tetsuo: The Bullet Man

I recently rented Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009) on Prime. The storyline follows a father who loses his son in a tragic accident. Shortly after the tragedy, he sees the driver from the accident that killed his son. This triggers an outrage inside him, causing a chemical reaction that transforms him into a metal killing machine out for revenge.

This film is written and directed by Shin'ya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and stars Eric Bossick (Equals), Tomorô Taguchi (Tetsuo: The Iron Man), and Yutaka Mishima (Silence).

The opening credits and introduction always get me fired up for another Tetsuo movie. This film features elite cinematography and has a unique, artistic flair. The background soundtrack and sound effects are once again top-notch. This film introduces new weapons, body configurations, and an entirely new premise. I enjoyed the new movements and the gore; the kills are always cool, but at times the film feels too clean and polished. I also felt they could have done more with the main character. The conclusion was solid and a fitting ending to the trilogy.

In conclusion, this may be the weakest film in the Tetsuo trilogy, but it is unique and entertaining enough to make it worth a watch. I would score this a 6.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

On a positive note, this movie does not resort to using CGI or other crappy special effects. The costume did the job well enough for this movie.

Sound was one of my first issues with this film. The background "music" was mostly someone beating the hell out of a metal trash can or banging a pipe wrench against a jungle gym at the park. There was some metal rifts that were pretty loud. Then the dialog would come in and either I was suffering from deafness or the actors would whisper their lines.

I never have been a fan of shaky cam filming, but this goes way beyond shaky cam to earth quake cam. At no point can I remember any scene that didn't move and flash. If you are epileptic you may have a seizure prior to the credits. The noise, flashes, and bombarding images are just like some hardcore death metal videos.

It takes forever for the origins to be discovered and then the last 20 minutes of the film the "bad guy" -with poor motive- gives the Bullet Man just 60 seconds to kill him... some how 20 minutes = 60 seconds doesn't seem to fit.

Overall a poor movie, I have watched worse. Maybe it would be better as an anime or if I was a big fan of the creator of this film.

If you know Tsukamoto's other films and you have already seen Tetsuo 1, at the vision of this one you will be unsatisfied. You will not recognize the original Tsukamoto storytelling, where you must evince everything about the story only by images, and not from an actor that speak and explain what happened since that scene of the movie. The good thing you can find in the first one or in the other movies by this author are that you must concentrate on the movie, on the images to be able to understand, and the images make you stay on your sit with your eyes open and your mind full operative. But this chapter of the Tetsuo saga is not that kind of film. It's more similar to an American movie than a Tsukamoto movie. I don't understand if it's Tsukamoto changing or it's only because this was an American co-production.

Maybe someone who don't know Tsukamoto will appreciate it for it's fine director's style or for the incomparable music, but it's better if you make a comparison with the first one, that will remain an absolute masterpiece, 20 years before, a lot of money less.

Still,this is a remake, with a lot of changes in the story, but not in the message the author wants to tell us!

Tetsuo: The Iron Man - A film so manic, hyper, weird, and stylish, it represented the epitome of an experimental film. David Lynch would have gouged his eyes out.

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer - A sequel so intense and crazy, it took the strange visions of the first film and spat them out at the viewer in a refreshing barrage of insanity.

The third Tetsuo film, The Bullet Man, is pretty much more of the same. You can certainly expect the film to break out in hyperactive bombardments of flashing rapid-fire images. You can certainly expect the main character to mutate into a metal monster and wreak some havoc (and this time, he spits bullets!). You can certainly expect this to be weird and crazy.

However, this Tetsuo film is notably different, and not in a way that's refreshing or necessarily good. In between the manic freak-out scenes, the film slows down drastically, trying its best to weave in some semblance of an actual story with actual characters and actual reasons behind the madness. With the terrible dialogue, short runtime, and overall freakiness of the film, I really don't think this story works as well as it wants to. The film really wants to give a compelling vengeance story (the exact same type that went into the last two films), it really wants to give us emotional characters, and it wants to give us some kind of background to the "Tetsuo Project" and its connection to the characters. In the end though, it comes off as being too short and underdeveloped for its own good.

The experience of the film overall is pretty agitating. Granted, the other Tetsuo films are agitating as hell, but The Bullet Man seems to be a grade worse. Nearly every scene is shot with a camera that never sits still. Given the other issues listed above, I was rather apathetic about the film overall. I actually value the other two films for their remarkable styles and visions, even though they are pretty hyperactive in their own right, but this third film never felt like it brought anything new to the table.

In addition to being really hyper and annoying, the film is rather drab-looking, with lots of dark lighting and gray settings. Photography is among the worst I have ever seen, and the editing is crazy. I was personally appalled by the acting and writing; most of the dialogue is terrible, with very stupid lines and absurd delivery. On the plus side, the sets, props, and costumes are pretty decent, and it's especially cool to see that the filmmakers preferred to use practical effects rather than cheap CGI. Music consists of lots of airy noises and metallic banging, further adding to the annoying experience.

As much as I value the first two Tetsuo movies, I couldn't bring myself to enjoy The Bullet Man as much as I wanted to. I halfway wonder if Shin'ya Tsukamoto is purposefully trying to make the most annoying movie possible. Established Tetsuo fans will probably enjoy The Bullet Man, but casual viewers will probably want to keep their distance. I personally recommend the first film, if at all interested.

2/5 (Experience: Annoying | Story: Very Poor | Film: Marginal)

Similar to the first two movies, Bullet Man is an alternate retelling of the same story. (avoiding spoilers) The protagonist is alienated in the big city, and "something" triggers a mechanical mutation which results into a physical transformation. Plotwise its what you'd expect in a Tetsuo-film.

Bullet Man is certainly among Tsukamoto's most experimental films, but in a completely different way, due to its casting decisions, and the bold choice of shooting the dialog entirely in English(with few exceptions), unlike Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, the dialog in this movie is in fact comprehensible. Its very obvious that Tsukamoto was aiming for a broader audience, but it didn't work quite as well.

I must admit that I was skeptical to Bossick in the lead role, but he is actually very well casted, his character is different from Taguchi, but still similar, he is a bit more stable, but furious at the same time.

Akiko Monou as Bossick's wife on the other hand doesn't work that well, its a dull performance mostly because of her dialog being in English. The chemistry between the two leads isn't present either, but this gets better as the film progresses, and then there is good old Shinya Tsukamoto as " The Guy " you'd be disappointed that he doesn't reprise his role as the metal fetishist, but he still play a pretty bad-ass character, and its a great performance.

The digital look of the film is not working in its favor at all, yet there are lots of trademark shots from the previous films, like the close ups of machinery etc, and Chu Ishikawa's industrial theme, are all present, and its shot in the same frenetic manner, but the gritty, and raw 16mm look is absent.

The Bullet Man, seems more like an American remake of the first film, it has this mainstream feel to it, and doesn't rely that much on symbolism and metaphors, like the first two films. Another big letdown is, this time there is no mutated counterpart for protagonist to fight, instead we have a bunch of army guys.

I would still recommend this to all Tsukamoto fans. It's different, and not among his best, but that doesn't necessarily mean that its bad. Check it out. 6/10