A Tokyo Businessman with his wife and son are walking the business shops when his son is kidnapped by a group of street thugs. While in pursuit of his son the father is shot by one of the thugs with a strange device. After the thugs oddly return his son, the father starts to notice odd changes with his body that occur in moments of anger. Only to be terrorized constantly by the thugs, the father decides to locate the gang and kill them all.
That plot summary might seem easy to follow but from there, only about 10 minutes into, the film tells the story from a fast pace view that will leave you just as dazed and exhilarated as the main character. While watching the movie I couldn't help but compare it to a graphic novel shot and edited while on speed that's mixed with creative hyper-violent action pieces. It should be noted that Tetsuo II: Body Hammer isn't as a much of a sequel to Tetsuo: The Iron Man but more of a re-telling on a bigger budget.
The lead character played by Tomoro Taguchi (Tetsuo the Iron Man, Dead or Alive 2) was exceptionally good at conveying his character's primary emotions of hate and confusion. Shinya Tsukamoto(The film's director often casts himself as an antagonist) along with Hideaki Tezuka played the leaders of the thugs and were freaky, hypnotic, and nightmarish to watch as we watch them carry onto their sadistic ends with a deadpan and vicious manners.
Shinya Tsukamoto created a simplistic masterpiece in the horror cyberpunk genre with this film and along with Tetsuo The Iron man. As mentioned before he shoots the film at a speed that gives it an unreal and nightmarish quality that leaves us questioning what was just seen so that we almost can't distinguish the difference between the character's reality and nightmare. The film also uses the most effective techniques of stop motion filming, which works beautifully and heightens the overall frightening mood of the film when the characters morph their body into metallic weapons. The film combines this with some outstandin action set pieces: a brief fight and shootout on a rooftop with fatal results, a marvelously shoot chase sequence, and a breathtaking showdown between the father and leader of the gang. TetsuoII does contain scenes of graphic violence but they are expected and even necessary for the film.
The subtitles were done by Manga and because of that they are completely flawless: Easy to read, No misspellings, and understandable. Though some can argue, that Tetsuo II isn't as fast pace and creative as Tetsuo I, Tetsuo II Body Hammer is quite a remarkable piece of film. It has such a simplistic plot yet it, I believe, has rooted into itself many messages like the consequences of using technology and finding peace amidst destruction.
The DVD was put out by Manga and it is all regions, contains production notes, and contains trailers for other Manga films. The only audio track is Japanese and the only subtitling is English. The DVD contains the Director's cut of Tetsuo II Body Hammer (Which includes more justifiable violence).