Tetsuo The Iron Man Special Edition DVD Review
How to even begin with this ... a true classic, the film that launched a Japanese auteur onto the world stage, an utterly unique experince, still shocking seventeen years later, Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a gripping, utterly unique piece of cinema. Love it or loathe it you absolutely cannot ignore it. This is one of the defining moments for 'Asian Extreme' cinema and it is fitting that Tartan Video has given it a new and much improved life with their new Tartan Asia Extreme DVD release.
A film that defies easy summary Tetsuo was the first feature, albeit a rather short one, from director Shinya Tsukamoto. In its incredibly dense sixty seven minutes it contains all the images and themes that have defined Tsukamoto ever since: gender relations, the numbness of workaday life and, most particularly and intensely, the dehumanizing effects of technology and our perverse love/hate relationship with it are all in full effect. This is a film that will chew you up and spit you out. It is an exhilerating, gruesome, at times repulsive ride, every bit as powerful now as it was when it first hit screens.
Fascinated by the dehumanizing effects of technology Tsukamoto crafted Tetsuo into the seminal cyber-punk / post human / body mod film. It tells the story of Tetsuo, a young salaryman slowly transforming into metal for reasons he cannot understand or control. Despite his struggles against it the transformation continually accelerates, drawing more and more fragments of metal to him and grafting them into his flesh until he inevitably mutates into a massive metallic beast. While Tetsuo struggles against his own transformation another young man is trying to cause his own, slicing himself open to graft metal rods and bars onto his bones wanting nothing more than the exact sort of transformation that is rapidly overtaking Tetsuo against his will. When the two meet for a final, climatic battle it is as though Tsukamoto is pitting the twin forces of attraction and repulsion against each other on screen: technology molds us and shapes us in ways that we both desire and despise but the process is inevitable.
On first viewing Tetsuo can feel like an exercise in style over substance but that is only because Tsukamoto is not at all concerned with narrative here. This is a film about impulse, desire and force, meant to be felt more than understood in any sort of narrative sense. It is clearly not a film for all audiences - many will find the images too unsettling and disturbing - but Tetsuo has cast a long, long shadow and is an undeniable, although very strange, classic.
So, what of this new edition? Calling it a Collector's Set is a bit of a misnomer as that label is generally put on releases packed to the gills with features and, frankly, there are none here. This edition includes trailers of some other Tsukamoto titles and a solid cast and crew biography page but nothing else in terms of extra features. What it does include is a beautiful new transfer and a punched up sound mix. Considering the shoddy video quality of previous Tetsuo DVD releases, particularly in the face of Tsukamoto's breath taking black and white cinematography, the remastered video is a HUGE calling card for this edition. While I haven't seen every edition of Tetsuo out there I have seen a few of them and this is by far the best the film has looked on DVD, enough of an improvement that it is well worth upgrading to this edition if you have the earlier R1 release or one of the Asian imports. While Tartan has included the original mono soundtrack for the purists they've also included new 5.1 and DTS mixes that give the abrasively industrial soundtrack some welcome kick.
If you're a fan of experimental film, a fan of Lynch or Cronenberg, a fan of cyberpunk, then Tetsuo is pretty much required viewing and this, simply, is the version to view. A broader feature set would be nice, yes, but that is secondary to the film itself and Tartan has hit it out of the park where that is concerned. Very highly recommended.
