Tetsuo: The Bullet Man | aka The Bulletman (2009) Review

“Tetsuo: The Bullet Man” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Cast: Eric Bossick, Akiko Mono, Shinya Tsukamoto, Stephen Sarrazin, Yuko Nakamura
Running Time: 79 min.

By HKFanatic

As a die-hard fan of Shinya Tsukamoto (I even wrote a term paper on the guy), I’m honest enough to admit that “Tetsuo: Bullet Man” is not very good. Sadly, I don’t think many fans were expecting it to be. Not only is it yet another sequel to Tsukamoto’s “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” (1989), a near perfect film that didn’t require a follow-up, it’s Tsukamoto’s first film to be shot almost entirely in English. Since Tsukamoto plays a role in the movie himself, we have a Japanese director writing a script and giving a performance in his second language. Trouble ensues.

“The Bullet Man” follows a similar plotline to previous “Tetsuo” films: a man undergoes a transformation into a mechanical beast due to an accident. The changes to his body are triggered by his own extreme emotions. The difference here is that Tsukamoto sets the movie up to be a revenge film and places a stronger emphasis on the plot. This really doesn’t work in his favor as Tsukamoto, like David Cronenberg, is frequently at his best when exploring issues of sexual identity (like in the original “Tetsuo”) rather than following a simple revenge movie template. It should be noted that the standard “Tetsuo” theme of isolation in the big city is glossed over here in under a minute. Yet there’s ample time reserved for awkward exposition, like when the camera scrolls along a piece of parchment that explains the backstory – intercut with flashbacks – for at least five minutes.

Eric Bossick stars in the lead role, playing an expatriate living in Japan with his Japanese wife and son. Bossick may be a good actor, I’m not sure (he’s mostly done motion capturing and voice acting for video games up to this point), but here he struggles with the stilted dialogue and as a director Tsukamoto doesn’t seem to be able to spot his cast’s half-hearted delivery. Bossick doesn’t bring the intensity needed to the role, at least not when he’s in human form. Mostly he reminded me of Gabriel Macht’s bland look and performance in “The Spirit.” The rest of the cast doesn’t fare much better, particularly the actor who plays Bossick’s father.

Overall, “The Bullet Man” feels like Tsukamoto’s attempt to tell a straight-forward science fiction story, perhaps one that would be more palatable to Western audiences. The problem is that he’s just not very good at being “straight forward.” His last work, “Nightmare Detective,” was similarly disappointing because it followed a typical horror movie formula (we haven’t even gotten “Nightmare Detective 2” in the West). Here the focus on an elaborate sci-fi backstory detracts from the sense of rage and wonder that was inherent in the first “Tetsuo” film.

There are a few action scenes inserted into the movie but any excitement they would bring is undermined by Tsukamoto’s frantic “shakycam” work, so prevalent here that it threatens the viewer with motion sickness. Really, the unnatural dialogue, poor performances, jumpy editing, and bursts of gory violence mean that “The Bullet Man” most resembles your typical direct-to-DVD sci-fi action flick. Sort of like a low-rent, B-movie take on “Robocop.” This is not the feeling one should get from a “Tetsuo” film.

The soundtrack is the usual industrial clamor you would expect for the series but it works in the context of the movie. It should be noted that a new composition from Nine Inch Nails plays during the closing credits. This piece of music is so damn good you wonder why Tsukamoto didn’t find a way to incorporate it into the actual film (unless it was delivered too late to do so).

Ultimately, “Tetsuo: The Bullet Man” is another misfire from a director who, after over 20 years in the film industry, only now seems to be making a bid for commerciality. It simply does not work for Tsukamoto. He’s a maverick director who belongs on the fringe, producing the kinds of films that no one else would dare to make. Films like the original “Tetsuo,” “A Snake of June,” and “Tokyo Fist” – the work that has cemented him as a legend of Japanese extreme cinema. Tsukamoto is a true auteur but lately when he tries to play it straight and aim for the mainstream, he ends up with movies that are too weird to be crowd-pleasers and too formulaic to appeal to his traditional audience. Shinya needs to remember what he does best (and in Japanese, please). For now, most viewers are probably going to be grateful that “The Bullet Man” is mercifully short at 77 minutes.

HKFanatic’s Rating: 5/10