Tamara I.
Hladik
In the present-day steel-and-girder colossus
of Tokyo, Tomoo Taniguchi is an unassuming businessman providing for his
wife and son. Their humble lives are shattered one day when the son is
kidnapped. Tomoo bursts into a rage as he pursues the attackers, and his
body morphs into extensions of his fury, his hands becoming massive
guns. Nevertheless, the kidnappers escape.
¡¡
Tomoo and his wife have little time to mourn, however, as Tomoo
himself is kidnapped and subjected to weird, torturous psychological and
biomechanical experiments. Tomoo's torturer appears to be the leader of
a violent cabal of techno-warriors who have been altered by the same
experiments that Tomoo now endures. The shadowy torturer also seems to
know Tomoo intimately, and his past as well. This is a past to which
Tomoo himself is a stranger: adopted at age eight, he has no clear
memories of his early childhood.
The leader gives the order to terminate Tomoo, but in his rage Tomoo
transforms into a murderous, uncontrollable cyborg and frees himself
from his captors. He escapes and returns to his wife, who is afraid of
what Tomoo has become. Meek before, Tomoo's rage has made him
omnipotent, but inhuman. Seeing that Tomoo cannot be controlled through
sheer force, the cabal kidnaps his wife. Tomoo's rage is awesome, and
where before mini-cannons exploded from his chest and his arms
transformed into machine guns, now his entire body is a tank, a rolling,
steel tower of violence and revenge. And revenge has meaning. The
mysterious stranger is none other than Tomoo's long-lost brother...
Good, but a step below great
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer is an entry in the subgenre of
live-action anime. This translates as using real actors, but also
special effects and animation, to deliver image-rich, abstract and
stylized action. As with most anime, Tetsuo II's plot is
more conceptual than linear, relying heavily on archetype and metaphor.
One of the film's most prominently-used symbols is that of Tokyo's icy,
high-gloss skyscrapers, a symbol that director Shinya Tsukamoto wields
deftly. Soaring, indifferent, metal architecture is the visual echo of
the cyborg prison that finally encases Tomoo.
Tsukamoto renders the film entirely in cool grays and blues.
Everything within the hegemony of emotion (love, fear, hatred,
vengeance) is isolated and equalized through this color scheme (one
exception: a flashback). This all builds upon the film's themes that: 1)
violence can liberate the self from an oppressive, industrialized
society; and 2) the violence that liberates ironically becomes its own
jail.
Although the buzz around Tetsuo II is frenetic (largely
because of the hot-cult status of its predecessor, Tetsuo),
the film is actually only good, not great, and no masterpiece. It swings
uncomfortably between sweeping imagery and dollops of plot, and would
soar higher if it trusted its art-house instincts more. Additionally,
its imagric quality and inventiveness are uneven; there are a few scenes
that are provocative and haunting, but many are overwrought. Lastly,
viewers should take note of its violence, which makes Tetsuo
II inappropriate for sub-adults (especially a graphic and
over-long rape scene). The film finishes as a should-see for fans of the
genre.
From Science Fiction Weekly
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