This was not a bad movie. It didn't have the experimental look of the first Tetsuo flick; however, that's been done. This one was kinder and gentler than the first... although still rough and disturbing. It reminded me of a Nine Inch Nails music video (Closer)... only much longer and with a mostly Japanese cast...The movie is about a man who, due to a genetic experiment with his mother, sprouted metal parts and guns when angered. It was kind of like the Incredible Hulk if that movie had been directed by David Lynch. There is more self discovery than in the first Tetsuo... more dialog as well. The acting is mediocre, but the images are definitely powerful.If Francis Bacon made a movie with Rob Zombie, this is what it would look like...

OK it seems that Shinya Tsukamoto decided to update his series even more to modern times and also put himself in the movie again. I guess you could say this was a revamp of the first, but a different story. But here is the thing. When he made a classic, he was limited to what he could use making him use his brain. Using todays technology could sometimes screws up a great thing. I am not saying this is a bad film though. Some good things about it was the nice grim colors to give it a creepier feel and the story was not confusing. But becoming the bullet man in this film was way over the top and it got to the point where it was really crazy; then calm. Yes it ended calm which was strange. Eric Bossick was a pretty decent actor and the only one I really cared about. He would make an excellent superhero. In fact this was not so much horror as it was action. A couple bad things. The story was a bit over the top and the voices were really hard to understand at points. Other than that, it was a decent film.

Perhaps Tsukamoto's simply grown weary of his own patented brand of hyperkinetic cinema verite; or maybe the idea well's simply run dry; whatever the reason, TETSUO: THE BULLET MAN is a far cry from the two films that preceded it in this trilogy. "Destroy all of our lazy peaceful dreams," Tsukamoto himself urges the Bullet Man, and it's his own filmmaking philosophy he's espousing. But, while we once again have the pounding of hammers on anvils, the fingernails screeching down chalkboards, and the man metamorphosizing into a heavy metal monstrosity, there's something definitely LACKING this time around. The TETSUO trilogy has lapsed into Formula. Like PROJECT ARMS or THE GUYVER or any one of a dozen other manga or anime man-into-machine tales, TETSUO has grown stale. Everything, from having a character brand himself with the heated barrel of a handgun to the white-out ending, he's used before. It's time to move on, storywise.

If you know Tsukamoto's other films and you have already seen Tetsuo 1, at the vision of this one you will be unsatisfied. You will not recognize the original Tsukamoto storytelling, where you must evince everything about the story only by images, and not from an actor that speak and explain what happened since that scene of the movie. The good thing you can find in the first one or in the other movies by this author are that you must concentrate on the movie, on the images to be able to understand, and the images make you stay on your sit with your eyes open and your mind full operative. But this chapter of the Tetsuo saga is not that kind of film. It's more similar to an American movie than a Tsukamoto movie. I don't understand if it's Tsukamoto changing or it's only because this was an American co-production. Maybe someone who don't know Tsukamoto will appreciate it for it's fine director's style or for the incomparable music, but it's better if you make a comparison with the first one, that will remain an absolute masterpiece, 20 years before, a lot of money less. Still,this is a remake, with a lot of changes in the story, but not in the message the author wants to tell us!