The first movie, "Tetsuo", was mostly a visual experience, while this sequel is also attempting to throw in some more story this time. It makes this movie a bit less artistic and a bit more mainstream than its predecessor but only just a bit though.
"Tetsuo II: Body Hammer" is for most part being still one psychedelic ride. There are lots of odd images and events, that just don't make sense in the real world but help to make this still a good and intriguing watch. The movie has a more of a manga vibe and feeling to it than anything else really. Fans of manga will therefore also most likely to appreciate this movie better than the average person.
It's obvious that Shinya Tsukamoto has progressed more as a director when watching this movie and compare it to its predecessor. It's also obvious that they had far more money to spend this time, though its still being a low-budget production.
This movie doesn't makes much sense as a sequel but then again, the movie just doesn't make much sense in general. It's for most part simply a movie you have to experience, though I admit that it all got a bit tiresome to watch after a while. It also seemed as if the film-makers stopped caring toward the end and dropped the story and all logic. This is when the movie becomes a quite distant and bland one, that only solely relies on its images to keep its viewers interested. This might had all worked for an hour long movie but this movie is about 30 minutes too long for that. This is the foremost reason why the first movie is still the better one, despite the fact that this movie makes more 'sense' and is also a better made one, with better production values and all.
Pehaps only truly interesting to watch this movie as a live-action manga.
6/10
Watch trailer
No comments: