Tetsuo II: Body Hammer

Lacking the frenetic, fevered energy of its forebear, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer is instead a series of dreamy interludes linked by variations on the same chase. Tetsuo: The Iron Man was a waking nightmare in which a young man struggled to cope with the changes his body was undergoing. Body Hammer, although apparently unconnected, deals with metamorphosis as an ancient abuse regurgitated in times of extreme stress. Iron Man was concerned with the present, Body Hammer is about tapping into the past and divining memory. Tomorowo Taguchi returns as Tomoo, a salaryman who lives, with his wife and son, in an apartment straight out of an aspirational hi-fi advert. Tomoo looks very much like a Steve Ditko drawing, while his wife, played by Nobu Kanaoka, is permanently dressed for a minimalist fashion shoot. This time Tokyo is shot with cool blues, the camera focused in on endless glass buildings and their attendant sense of alienation. When his son is kidnapped by a team of muscle bombers, the salaryman pursues, his body stretching and exploding to reveal a rib cage made from pistols. Iron Man felt like a city collapsing in on itself: circuitry, effluence and people mixing to create a creature able to survive in this steaming pit. Body Hammer instead presents a city locked in stasis. Mutation is something to be forced, often leading to a rusty, clattering failure. Tomoo then represents a pure evolutionary leap. He is the new life form, a stumbling mix of concrete and artillery. A mobile city state able to consume weaklings then spit out carnage.