Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer (1992)
AKA: –
Year: 1992
Directed by: Shinya Tsukamoto
Starring: Tomoro Taguchi (Taniguchi), Shinya Tsukamoto (Yatsu), Nobu Kanaoka (Kana)
Country: Japan, Asian Cinema
Language: Japanese (English Subs)
Runtime: 01:20:50
Genres: Gore-Splatter, Body Modification, Revenge, Sci-Fi
Plot – Spoilers:
Taniguchi is a meek family man with some spillover trauma from a childhood where he was adopted. His life centers around his son and wife, until one day while at a mall, he’s attacked by a couple of matrix-type thugs. They shoot something metallic into him and mock-kidnap his son before tauntingly dangling him over the edge of a building.
Traumatized, the wimpy Taniguchi hits the gym but embarrasses himself. However, every time he has flashes of anger over the memory of the incident, he is possessed with a phenomenal strength. As it turns out, Taniguchi was a guinea pig in an experiment to turn man into machine, with flesh and limbs morphing into destructive weapons.
Some time later, when the same guys actually kidnap his son, Taniguchi goes after them and accidentally kills his own son. Revenge therefore beckons!
Not as good as the original, but still a sick masterpiece
i agree 100%
Ha. Ha. Ha. And vanilla ice cream is better than a chocolate sundae with nuts.
At the very least, learn to appreciate chocolate and nuts (if you are averse).
For starters, the camera work is galactically better than the original.. Some of the camera positioning and movement in this movie is very elegant (almost great!) while simultaneously possessing the restraint of a very humble and talented thinker. If an example is needed, observe attentively some of the angles chosen during the chase scenes.
Now, more importantly, the film as a whole is tighter and more polished. There is a common thread connecting most of the sequences, and that is the idea of surveillance. This allows the basic viewers to follow along to a certain degree without getting overwhelmed. [The most unsophisticated of viewers will interpret this movie as a chase-and-rescue type movie (reclaiming his child).]
The real beauty in this movie comes from the ambiguity in the causality chain!: Is he a guinea pig or is everyone living the reality? Is he remembering or are they coordinating his memories? etc.
This director is a great and the acting was supreme fun (as before). Great job.
i find it to be somewhat more enjoyable to the average viewer, like this one’s a MOVIE movie while the first one is a very deep work of art. i can certainly appreciate the first movie for how it was made and what it is as a whole, but i’m not nearly smart enough to understand all of it’s messages and symbolisms by myself, which leaves me with a very strange experience that while i certainly did not hate or even feel anything negative about i also did not enjoy it to it’s fullest. this movie however, (while in my opinion, does lack a little bit in the design of the fully transformed iron man) i did enjoy while seeing the action scenes and that funny bit where he runs around with a phone for no reason (which he then hangs up on a random piece of metal) so i can certainly say that this is a better MOVIE, but an inferior “art project” as a whole.