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R: ARCHIVE, S: REVIEWS, D: 07/10/1997,

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer

'Tis the season for special-effects gee-wizardry, and Shinya Tsukamoto's sequel to his cult hit Tetsuo: The Iron Man is another inventive visual assault about the melding of man and machine. Forget about hungry dinos or whirring flying saucers; this is good ol' fashioned anatomical mutation, innards and entrails splattering forth in highly stylized, expressionistic color. Itself a hybrid of The Fly and Blade Runner, the relentlessly gory fantasy plunges into the nightmare of a Clark Kentish dad (Tomoroh Taguchi) who discovers he's literally armed -- there's a smokin', phallic, presumably really heavy gun in place of his forearm. Soon a psycho tyrant (Tsukamoto) kidnaps him to hot-wire his whole body into a device of destruction.

The film detonates into an apocalyptic diatribe against a post-industrial world, its near monochromatic images reflecting the cool blues and grays of a skyscraper society. The camera work is dizzyingly frantic; the visuals alternately repulse and exhilarate. And the story? It's easy to forget the Kafka-esque excuse for this barrage of horrors. The thriller is elliptical at best, and without an equally explosive narrative to propel the amazing effects, Body Hammer doesn't quite nail it. At the Kendall Square.

-- Alicia Potter