Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
Encyclopedia
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer is a 1992
Japanese
science fiction
/horror
film
directed by
Shinya Tsukamoto
. It is a bigger-budget reworking of the same director's 1989 movie Tetsuo: The Iron Man
, utilizing similar themes and ideas to the earlier film (a Japanese salaryman,
played by cult actor Tomorowo Taguchi
, finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.) It was not as well received as its predecessor but it did win the Critic's Award at the 3rd Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival
in February 1992.
A third Tetsuo movie, entitled Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
, was released in May 2010.
Taniguchi Tomoo is discussing his past with his wife, since he does not have any memories before his adoption at eight years old. He is almost killed when two cyborg skinheads try to kidnap his son, Minori. He is forced to take an injection by one of the skinheads. Frightened by the encounter, he starts working out. Unsuccessful lifting even the lightest of weights at first, he suddenly is capable of enormous feats of strength. Later, he gets an anonymous call asking how his training went. The caller informs Taniguchi that he has kidnapped Minori by entering through the building's back door. Taniguchi chases the kidnappers to a roof where he again finds himself hanging on the edge, close to death. However, this time he manages to pull himself up, only to be told the skinhead already threw his son off the roof.
Enraged by this, Taniguchi transforms and grows a gun from his arm. He shoots the skinhead who, having lied about dropping Minori, holds the son in front of him, causing Taniguchi to kill his own son. The skinhead escapes, leaving behind a distraught Taniguchi who discovers his wife saw everything.
The skinheads arrive at their hideout where their accomplices work out lifting enormous weights. They meet a Mad Scientist who asks them what kind of specimen they picked for the injection, revealing that Taniguchi's injection is part of an experiment. Later, Taniguchi is kidnapped by the skinheads and experimented on by the Mad Scientist who manipulates Taniguchi's memories, furthering his change from man to machine. It is revealed that the Mad Scientist works with Yatsu who - after ordering Taniguchi's death - informs the Mad Scientist that his goal is only destruction and that every skinhead get an injection.
After Taniguchi's escape, a skinhead injects himself and rapidly transforms, since his will to kill is much greater. During the escape, Taniguchi and the skinhead find they both have the ability to transform back into their human forms. The two face off in an abandoned factory and the skinhead tells Taniguchi that they all want to be made into gods by to Yatsu.
Back at home, Taniguchi's wife, Kana, discovers that Taniguchi's injection was actually blocked by his pocket organizer. So Taniguchi has the ability to transform into a machine under his own will. His wife is visibly scared of her husband. She leaves in a hurry, only to also be kidnapped on the street. Taniguchi pursues the car on a bicycle, transforming and eventually catching up. Still, the skinheads manage to escape. Kana meets Yatsu who tells her about her husband, who apparently has possessed incredible power all along, but chose to not use it unless he's pushed. The last time he's used the power - before his eighth birthday - not only kill all the children who bullied him but also destroyed those he loved.
Taniguchi finds where Kana is held and ignores threats of the skinheads killing her. Yatsu talks to Taniguchi, then seemingly kills Kana. Taniguchi has had no mercy and a hostage meant nothing to him. Still, Kana's death pushes Taniguchi completely over the edge and he fully transforms. in the fight between Yatsu and Taniguchi, Yatsu tries to rust Taniguchi to death, like in the first movie. After Taniguchi has seemingly won, Yatsu shoots a cable into Taniguchi, causing further transformations.
During this, Taniguchi learns that his father was creating the perfect human weapon, first training his sons - Tomoo and Yatsu - with guns, then making the guns part of them. Tomoo leaves before killing a dog, while his brother kills the animal. The boys also witness their father killing their mother in a bizarre sex ritual involving the woman sucking on a gun. Tomoo loses his memory after witnessing the death of both his mother and killing his father. This makes him realize the beauty of destruction and both Tomoo and Yatsu merge into a humongous creature. Tomoo begs Kana to inject him with the gun that will make him rust to death, but she refuses to harm him. The Tomoo/Yatsu creature merges with the remaining skinheads and they turn into a giant, tank-like machine rolling through the city.
The final shots of the movie show Kana, Tomoo, and Minori walking through the ruins of what was once a city, with her remarking how peaceful the place has become.
1992 in film
The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards...
Japanese
Cinema of Japan
The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...
science fiction
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
/horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by
Shinya Tsukamoto
Shinya Tsukamoto
is a Japanese film director and actor with a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad.-Biography:Tsukamoto started making movies at the age of 14, when his father gave him a Super 8 camera. He made a number of films, ranging...
. It is a bigger-budget reworking of the same director's 1989 movie Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a 1989 Japanese cyberpunk film by cult-film director Shinya Tsukamoto produced by Japan Home Video. This, his third film, is an extremely graphic but also strikingly-filmed fantasy shot in the same low-budget, underground-production style as his first two films...
, utilizing similar themes and ideas to the earlier film (a Japanese salaryman,
played by cult actor Tomorowo Taguchi
Tomorowo Taguchi
is a Japanese actor.After leaving Dokkyo University without graduating, he started to earn his living as an illustrator, writer and pornographic cartoonist. He joined a theatre called Hakken no Kai in 1978 and he made a screen debut in Zokubutsu Zukan in 1982...
, finds his body transforming into a weapon through sheer rage after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs.) It was not as well received as its predecessor but it did win the Critic's Award at the 3rd Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival
Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival
The , also sometimes called YIFFF, is held in a resort-like environment in the small town of Yūbari on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaidō. From 1990 to 1999, the festival was known as the Yubari International Fantastic Adventure Film Festival.-History:...
in February 1992.
A third Tetsuo movie, entitled Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man is the third film in Shinya Tsukamoto's cyberpunk film series, and the first to be filmed in English.-Plot:Anthony is a man with an American father and a deceased Japanese mother living and working in Tokyo. One day his son is run over and killed by Yatsu, this film's version...
, was released in May 2010.
Plot
The film opens with a man being shot by Yatsu - known as "The Metal Fetishist" or "The Guy" in this movie - who fires the shot from his index finger, holding his hand like a gun.Taniguchi Tomoo is discussing his past with his wife, since he does not have any memories before his adoption at eight years old. He is almost killed when two cyborg skinheads try to kidnap his son, Minori. He is forced to take an injection by one of the skinheads. Frightened by the encounter, he starts working out. Unsuccessful lifting even the lightest of weights at first, he suddenly is capable of enormous feats of strength. Later, he gets an anonymous call asking how his training went. The caller informs Taniguchi that he has kidnapped Minori by entering through the building's back door. Taniguchi chases the kidnappers to a roof where he again finds himself hanging on the edge, close to death. However, this time he manages to pull himself up, only to be told the skinhead already threw his son off the roof.
Enraged by this, Taniguchi transforms and grows a gun from his arm. He shoots the skinhead who, having lied about dropping Minori, holds the son in front of him, causing Taniguchi to kill his own son. The skinhead escapes, leaving behind a distraught Taniguchi who discovers his wife saw everything.
The skinheads arrive at their hideout where their accomplices work out lifting enormous weights. They meet a Mad Scientist who asks them what kind of specimen they picked for the injection, revealing that Taniguchi's injection is part of an experiment. Later, Taniguchi is kidnapped by the skinheads and experimented on by the Mad Scientist who manipulates Taniguchi's memories, furthering his change from man to machine. It is revealed that the Mad Scientist works with Yatsu who - after ordering Taniguchi's death - informs the Mad Scientist that his goal is only destruction and that every skinhead get an injection.
After Taniguchi's escape, a skinhead injects himself and rapidly transforms, since his will to kill is much greater. During the escape, Taniguchi and the skinhead find they both have the ability to transform back into their human forms. The two face off in an abandoned factory and the skinhead tells Taniguchi that they all want to be made into gods by to Yatsu.
Back at home, Taniguchi's wife, Kana, discovers that Taniguchi's injection was actually blocked by his pocket organizer. So Taniguchi has the ability to transform into a machine under his own will. His wife is visibly scared of her husband. She leaves in a hurry, only to also be kidnapped on the street. Taniguchi pursues the car on a bicycle, transforming and eventually catching up. Still, the skinheads manage to escape. Kana meets Yatsu who tells her about her husband, who apparently has possessed incredible power all along, but chose to not use it unless he's pushed. The last time he's used the power - before his eighth birthday - not only kill all the children who bullied him but also destroyed those he loved.
Taniguchi finds where Kana is held and ignores threats of the skinheads killing her. Yatsu talks to Taniguchi, then seemingly kills Kana. Taniguchi has had no mercy and a hostage meant nothing to him. Still, Kana's death pushes Taniguchi completely over the edge and he fully transforms. in the fight between Yatsu and Taniguchi, Yatsu tries to rust Taniguchi to death, like in the first movie. After Taniguchi has seemingly won, Yatsu shoots a cable into Taniguchi, causing further transformations.
During this, Taniguchi learns that his father was creating the perfect human weapon, first training his sons - Tomoo and Yatsu - with guns, then making the guns part of them. Tomoo leaves before killing a dog, while his brother kills the animal. The boys also witness their father killing their mother in a bizarre sex ritual involving the woman sucking on a gun. Tomoo loses his memory after witnessing the death of both his mother and killing his father. This makes him realize the beauty of destruction and both Tomoo and Yatsu merge into a humongous creature. Tomoo begs Kana to inject him with the gun that will make him rust to death, but she refuses to harm him. The Tomoo/Yatsu creature merges with the remaining skinheads and they turn into a giant, tank-like machine rolling through the city.
The final shots of the movie show Kana, Tomoo, and Minori walking through the ruins of what was once a city, with her remarking how peaceful the place has become.
Film facts
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer is in color as opposed to Tetsuo: The Iron Man which was in black and white.External links
- Tetsuo II: Body Hammer; expansive review by Roger EbertRoger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...