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Tetsuo (The Iron Man) (1989)

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Posted on April 29, 2007 by Alison

I have an absolute argument-winner: the next time someone tries to dispute that Japanese filmmakers are weird, I can show them Tetsuo. Then, after I’ve revived them and stopped them gibbering, they’ll have to admit that yes, I’m right, and yes, Japanese filmmakers come from another planet. The film damn near sucked out my brain like a whelk.

If you make it as far as the salaryman being pursued through the train station by a secretary who’s unnacountably turning … (read more)

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Ichi the Killer (2001)

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Posted on January 25, 2006 by Alison

Remember the old architect sketch from Monty Python? A group of Masons offer a tender for an apartment building, and one of the architects presents designs for a slaughterhouse, justifying it thus: “This is not just a slaughterhouse. There’s no blood caked on the walls and flesh flying out of the windows incommoding passers-by with this one!”

That is so, so, not Ichi The Killer. There is blood caked on the walls. And the only reason there’s no … (read more)

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Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer (1992)

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Posted on November 25, 2005 by Ben Jennings

Tsukamoto Shinya’s Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer is a slightly superior pseudo-sequel to 1988’s Tetsuo, and like that movie, it’s weird, crazy stuff indeed. Logic and rationality quail, run away and quickly die of fright when confronted with a movie like this. While it must be said that it is more narratively comprehensible than the original film, that isn’t saying much.

The story, so far as one can tell, involves a mild mannered businessman (Tomoroh Taguchi) whose son is killed and … (read more)

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