Tetsuo: The Bullet Man

This might end up being a  short review because I have no idea how to review a movie like this. What a weird movie. What a weird experience. I can’t decide whether or not this movie is good, but I lean towards probably bad. I was going to write a negative review at first, but decided to sit on it for a while.

Three days later…

Bullet Man exists outside of my capacity to make judgments on a movie. It is more of an experience than an entertainment. What is the plot? I’m not sure. Maybe it is too complicated or simple, but I never really knew what was going on. I think it is about a guy whose mom is implanted with a baby that is part robot/andriod…I think. And said baby turns out to be this guy whose son is murdered and he seeks revenge against the man who killed his kid. This is all “I think”. I watched the movie pretty damn close and never really knew what going on.

This has a lot to do with the director, Shinya Tsukamoto, who directs scenes with an endless supply of insanity, weird special effects, and editing so quick and maddening it would make Michael Bay puke from motion sickness.

So…all-in-all:

Is the movie as success? Yes, it does what it set out to do — but so do serial killers. I wasn’t bored, but wasn’t really into the movie either. You might be though. All of Japan’s cyberpunk movies are pretty inaccessible, but movies such as the first Testsuo story, or the animated Akira feature, manage to gain a pretty respectable audience.