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Back to Podcast EpisodesTetsuo, The Iron Man (鉄男) Review
We watched Tetsuo, The Iron Man (鉄男 ＴＥＴＳＵＯ) on Shudder and jesus christ; I don’t have any words.
Tetsuo is a David Lynchian / Cronenberg-esque film that aims to disturb with intensity and extreme imagery. Everything about this movie is turned up to the max. It’s full of intense mutilation, body horror, and sexually provocative fetishization and imagery. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Tetsuo, The Iron Man a good movie, as I would call it an important movie.
With that being said, I found this unpleasant to watch in just about every way. There isn’t much dialog, the story is paper thin, and the intent is unclear. It is clear that there is a decent amount of symbolism here, or at least that people will reason that this movie is symbolistic. For me, it’s hard to tell whether writer/director Shin’ya Tsukamoto intended for the obvious symbolism, or whether he was banking on you wanting to read too far into it. It seems equally plausible to me that Mr. Tsukamoto has some crazy kinks, and needed to work them out on screen.
Tetsuo, The Iron Man Trailer
Tetsuo, The Iron Man Synopsis
Tetsuo is not an easily understood or interpreted movie, and it’s not supposed to be. The synopsis of Tetsuo seems to be that a man known as the “metal fetishist” (Shin’ya Tsukamoto) is obsessed with pushing pieces of metal into his body, which gives him some sort of high. At the start of the movie, he is getting off while pushing scrap metal into his legs and ends up running into the road in some metal obsessed stupor. At this point, a man credited as “salaryman” (Tomorô Taguchi) hits the fetishist while driving in his car with his wife or girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara).
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The story
transitions to following the salaryman, who begins to notice metal objects
quickly taking over his body, which is alarming to him – shocking, I know. Fro
Published on 6 years, 7 months ago