Confession time: I’ve never seen Tetsuo: The Iron Man and my knowledge of Asian body horror is limited at best, so I went into Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
completely blind. Well, almost. Mention that you’ve never seen a Shinya
Tsukamoto film before at Fantastic Fest and you suddenly find yourself
surrounded by a chorus of giddy people proclaiming “Man, you have no
idea what you’re getting into!”
So I didn’t go in blind. I went in knowing that I had no idea what I was getting into.
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
is the tale of an American living in Tokyo who watches his son get
brutally murdered and then finds himself transforming into an invincible
cyborg with the ability to render things asunder. Naturally, he sets
out to decimate his son’s killers and find out what’s happening to him.
If you read the sentence “finds himself transforming into an invincible cyborg” and imagined something akin to say, Robocop,
I wouldn’t blame you. That’s the sane image to conjure. It’s not sane
to imagine a man’s skin painfully turning to steel, his face and body
contorting and falling apart and his innards transforming into gears and
pistons. Our hero is like a Japanese robot Hulk: the angrier he gets,
the more he resembles one of those robot squids from The Matrix.
Oh, Japan.
But is it good? This is a case where words fail me. Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
is an experience. I’m not sure if it was a positive or a negative
experience, but I’m glad I saw it because now I can say I’ve
seen it.
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
makes the most of it’s brief running time by being one of the loudest,
fastest and most sensory abusive motion pictures I’ve ever seen. Shots
last for fractions of a second. The camera never stops moving. Much of
the film plays like an extended experimental montage, jumping where and
when it needs to go and pretty much not caring what it will do to any
epileptics in the audience. There is not a moment of silence and when
things threaten to quiet down, Tsukamoto unleashes ungodly noises on the
soundtrack to make sure you don’t have a chance to calm down. This is
literally the loudest film I’ve ever seen. It’s an exhausting,
indescribable experience.
In
a film filled with strangeness, the strangest decision may have been to
shoot the film in English with an American lead. The result is a
stilted performance from Eric Bossick, who not only has to put up with
increasingly ridiculous make-up but is obviously being directed through a
translator and working from a script that sounds like it was written in
Japanese and put through a free online translator. You’ve never heard
human beings talk like this. In another movie, this would be a
detractor. Here, it only adds to the strangeness of the experience.
I’m not going to give Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
a numerical score because it doesn’t ask for one and doesn’t deserve
one. I will, however, give it a tentative recommendation. Because it
really is something. I just don’t know what that something is.
16 comments
Jacob, how bout acting like you got a pair and not being a giant vagina by not putting a score down. Thats a pussy move. Make a fucking statement and rate the godamn movie, it aint rocket surgery you're doing numnuts.
Ignore tiny dick Crudfan. "? out of 10" is a great score for this type of movie. You totally got it dude. Can't wait for this one.
That's exactly what Ebert did with Human Centipede. Used pretty much the same reasoning as well.
Okay. You win. I give this movie a krevin out of ten.
Chudfan is Devin Faraci.
Its a sad state when you are a freakin' cult film fest reviewer and you havent seen a Tsukamoto movie. What other major cult film makers work have you not seen, Russ Meyers, Jack Hill, Takshi Miike, Roger Corman?… To you this film is a one off, and thats why you cannot muster the guts to rate it? For those familiar with him, it is part of a cyberpunk trilogy from the man and body horror is his stock and trade, too bad you just dont know that. But as it stands, you must have some reaction, good or bad, so freaking rate it already. Reviewing is no business for a waffler.
This Jacob Hall person is actually a decent writer. I can't tell if he knows what he's talking about yet (you know, filmwise) but it's immediately clear that he can develop cogent points and construct coherent sentences to make them.
So now that Deviin's gone we have ignorant children reviewing movies here? Fuck ME. Hey Jacob, what do you think of Adam Sandler's recent output?
Who hired this guy to write reviews? I want to read reviews from someone who actually watches movies.
My left nut has seen more movies than you have and it doesn't even have eyes!! Too bad this gig wouldn't pay well enough for me or I'd apply.
Looks like I'll just have to come to CHUD for second hand news now. I'll have to find somewhere else for real reviews.
Jesus h christ Chud has become a total troll hub. Read the actual review for a change and you'll get why it has no score. Otherwise keep on trollin'.
And this is why numerical scores – or rating shorthands in general – are fucking obnoxious: there's always a whiny little bitch who'll screech and moan if the number, or the stars, or the bloody arm stumps, or whatever, aren't *exactly* in line with what he wanted. To those who felt the need to verbally shit all over Jacob, I just want to know why in the fuck you have any interest in reading anyone's review of this film at all, seeing as how your opinions seem to be set in the sturdiest sort of stone. Just because you don't go walking around saying, "I'd give that album… 3.86745 stars," or, "Are you KIDDING me? That movie was two severed fingers out of five, at best," doesn't mean you don't have an opinion. Maybe some people actually have opinions that can't be accurately summarized with a raised or lowered thumb. In the age of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, where a quickly blurted out number is supposed to be a sufficient response to a piece of work that took plenty of people a whole fuckload of time to produce, I think a critic who refuses to take the easy way out in a review has done something worthy of praise. I'll go and visit the rest of Jacob's articles right now, just to spite the whiny piece of useless shit that is Chudfan.
I agree with #9…I've seen this trend on Chud more and more with the newer writers. I really don't want to come off as a jerk here. It's just that you kind of expect a critic to know his subject. I mean, look at this sentence: "I've never seen Tetsuo: The Iron Man and my knowledge of Asian body horror is limited at best." Really? I'm not interested in restaurant reviews from people who've never eaten food, I'm not interested in art reviews from blind people and I don't want eunuchs explaining what a blowjob feels like. I'm sure I'll hear the argument, "Hey man, you don't need to be a movie encyclopedia to be a critic – you just need an opinion." I say no.
We're not talking about ignorance of a genre here. 'Asian body horror' is such a vague term that I'm not sure if I'm overly familiar with it myself or not; it's not like the review kicked off with 'never having seen a Western before…'
I can see the objection to his not having seen the other films in the series, but just this once, I prefer that. What you want with a film like this is an open mind, and a series like this provokes strong opinions. I want to see it with an open mind, but doubt I'll be able to, so it's interesting to hear from someone approaching it cold.
Man alive. No one can see everything. This is not Joe Whatshisdick admitting that he had never seen THE BIG LEBOWSKI, shitting all over it and then namecalling his critics in the talkbacks like an insolent child (yes, that happened on CHUD for anyone who isn't aware, look up the "Late to the Party" articles). This is a dude who writes pretty damn well saying he wasn't familiar with TETSUO: THE IRON MAN. OK, OK, any film geek worth their salt should have at least heard of this movie (I've seen it, thank Christ, don't eviscerate me please), but being unfamiliar with these niche corners of cinema is not a fucking travesty. We all have our gaps and blind spots. So excuse me if I think commenters like #12 are exaggerating just a tiny little fucking bit when they're comparing this guy to a eunuch reviewing a blowjob. To Jacob: Thank you for manning up and taking the time to write some coherent, well articulated reviews after Devin pulled his ultimate dick move and stabbed Nick Nunziata in the back. Some of us appreciate it.
OK #14, perhaps I was coming on a bit strong. I hereby declare myself to be a moron.
so, um, I own 5000 films. I'm very familiar with this genre. does this site pay? Can i have your job?
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