The long awaited third installment of Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo trilogy has proven to be a divisive one. But with the film arriving on VOD via IFC Midnight on January 19th fans will soon be able to judge for themselves if this one lives up to the legacy of the original body transformation cult classic.
To give a bit of a taste we've got an exclusive clip from the film for you in the player below. Be warned that it does contain some gore and is not entirely work safe.Calm office worker Anthony, son of an American father and a Japanese mother, lives in Tokyo with his wife Yuriko and their little son Tom. Since Anthony's mother died of cancer, his scientist father has been overly fearful for their health and rigidly subjects Anthony and Tom to monthly physicals. Walking home, Tom is killed in a hit and run before Anthony's eyes. Losing their boy pushes Yuriko over the edge and triggers violent emotions in Anthony, whose body begins to transform. Little by little, his cells turn into iron. When the driver who killed Tom reappears and Anthony learns the truth about his father's past experiments on human guinea pigs and about his mother's death, Anthony mutates into a mass of metal - a human weapon fueled by an uncontrollable rage.
I'm not proud to admit that I watched this bootlegged online, but here are a few brief impressions.
1. The acting is very much in the Tetsuo tradition. Nothing about it is naturalistic, but if you can look at it as a stylistic choice, it's very fitting.
2. This movie has some of the most intense, disturbing robot design I've ever see. Seriously, the Decepticons don't have SHIT on this motherfucker.
3. An action scene involving SWAT members that is up there with T2, The Matrix and Leon. It's really, really intense.
4. I thin that the hi-def digital look actually works very well. I'm glad he didn't try to mimic the hand-cut film style of the first one.
I'd recommend this to any fans of Tsukamoto. I'd also suggest NOT doing any psychedelics before viewing this, because you will decide that you must kill someone before they turn into a robot monster.