In ‘Tetsuo II,’ Man MutatesInto a Most Lethal Weapon

With “Tetsuo II: Body Hammer,” Japan’s prodigious visionary Shinya Tsukamoto takes his first film, “Tetsuo: The Iron Man,” a logical step further. In the earlier picture, man becomes metal; now he’s mutated into a killing machine.

Tsukamoto is an amazing, idiosyncratic filmmaker, able to conjure up a universe and put it on the screen with maximum impact and conviction. In essence, he envisions man transformed into a lethal weapon every time he becomes angry.

The film takes us into a modern metropolis in which everything looks brand-new and shiny (and soulless) and picks out an ordinary-looking young Japanese businessman, Tomoo Taniguchi (Tomoroh Taguchi, who had a similar role in the first film). Taniguchi lives with his wife Kana (Nobu Kanaoka) and small son in a tasteful apartment in a vast high-rise.

Taniguchi has no memories of his life before the age of 8, when he was adopted by foster parents. However, he’s beginning to have dreams of an open field in a beautiful rural setting. Eventually he envisions a couple with two small sons in that field, peering into the horizon. It’s an image that could have come straight out of a classic Ozu film.

In a giant shopping mall, the Taniguchis are accosted by a pair of skinheads and barely escape with their lives. Attacked again, Taniguchi develops superhuman strength in a state of rage, saving his own life.

Zapped by some sort of ray gun, Taniguchi winds up in an immense factory inhabited by a legion of zombie-like mutant skinheads undergoing severe physical training. He’s strapped down and his head clamped in some diabolical-looking machinery, which results in speeding his mutation into a walking arsenal, sprouting cyberguns in all directions.

Of course, links emerge between Taniguchi’s bizarre fate and his repressed childhood memories. As before, Tsukamoto casts himself as the key adversary, here called “The Guy.”

What Tsukamoto does so dazzlingly well is to blur the line between man and killing machine to create a powerful metaphor for the modern world, which he clearly sees in need of destruction so that humans can again live in harmony with nature.

Tsukamoto brings to life his apocalyptic vision with wit, outrageous humor and with images that achieve their own kind of blurring--between comic-book stylization and movie-camera reality. The intensely graphic look of “Tetsuo II” is at once beautiful and eerily surreal, and Tsukamoto creates the familiar equation of masculinity and weaponry with exceptional critical force.

Sometimes “Tetsuo II” is hard to follow, despite subtitles, but there’s no mistaking what Tsukamoto expresses--with such dizzying impact--about the clash between nature and society.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: It includes a tremendous amount of stylized violence, and a brutal sex scene.

‘Tetsuo: Body Hammer’

Tomoroh Taguchi: Tomoo Taniguchi

Nobu Kanaoka: Kana

Shinya Tsukamoto: The Guy

A Manga Entertainment release of a Toshiba EMI presentation. Writer-director-cinematogrpher-art director-gaffer-editor Shinya Tsukamoto. Producers Fuminori Shishido, Fumio Kurokawa, Nobuo Takeuchi, Hiromi Aihara. Executive producers Hiroshi Koizumi, Shinya Tsukamoto. Music Chu Ishikawa. Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes.

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* Exclusively at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.