Bullet Man

I finally saw Tsukamoto's third Tetsuo movie, Tetsuo: The Bullet Man. The first thing is to realize that the Tetsuo movies are an ongoing film experiment more than anything. There are no sequels, Tsukamoto is remaking the film from scratch in a different style each time. So expecting another film in the same style is misguided, and guaranteed to disappoint.

There were some excellent elements to this movie. The abstract sequences were great.

The tunnel under his father's house is nice.

The annoying things were primarily: the Transformer GI Joe action sequences (slaughtering the mercenaries), and the excessive plot narration with image flashbacks. The heavy-handed plot explanations were really annoying.

I enjoyed the pruning-Tetsuo sequence, where his wife pulled excess pieces of metal off his body.

Also interesting is the elements from Tsukamoto's non-Tetsuo movies that crept into this. The medical sketches from Vital, and the crawling-on-the-ceiling bits from Hiruko.

The transformations were briefly cranked up to Akira-levels.

Also, glad he passed on the obvious explosion of violence in the very last scene, where he walks past the gang, completely ignoring them.