Perhaps Tsukamoto's simply grown weary of his own patented brand of hyperkinetic cinema verite; or maybe the idea well's simply run dry; whatever the reason, TETSUO: THE BULLET MAN is a far cry from the two films that preceded it in this trilogy. "Destroy all of our lazy peaceful dreams," Tsukamoto himself urges the Bullet Man, and it's his own filmmaking philosophy he's espousing. But, while we once again have the pounding of hammers on anvils, the fingernails screeching down chalkboards, and the man metamorphosizing into a heavy metal monstrosity, there's something definitely LACKING this time around. The TETSUO trilogy has lapsed into Formula. Like PROJECT ARMS or THE GUYVER or any one of a dozen other manga or anime man-into-machine tales, TETSUO has grown stale. Everything, from having a character brand himself with the heated barrel of a handgun to the white-out ending, he's used before. It's time to move on, storywise.
Review of Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
