After he is infected by a strange metallic disease, innocent salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi) finds himself rapidly overwhelmed.
Running only 67 mins, the film’s plot is almost like Cronenbergian riff on a fairy tale:
An innocent salaryman is attacked by someone already afflicted with the metallic symbiote, and proceeds to undergo a transformation into the titular metal man. Most of the action is restricted to the claustrophobic confines of his apartment.
Powered by anxiety about the future, technology, the subordination of flesh to machine, and notions of masculinity, the film’s themes are matched by its aesthetics:
Shot in grainy black and white, the film’s distinctive handmade qualities - the lurching camera, jagged editing, stop-motion and a reprise of one of the earliest cinematic special effects, speeding up the film - give the film a pulsing sense of life, as the mechanised, rhythmic score builds a sense of inevitability.
The film’s style echoes the characters’ transformations - the Salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and the Young Metal Fetishist (writer-director Tsukamoto) are covered in scraps of pipe and other used items and materials.
Even before he is affected, the grubby, cramped tunnels and apartments of the mise-en-scene, make the world feel like the metal has already taken over. The characters are already trapped. Giving over to the new flesh is ultimately a form of escape.
The Salaryman’s transformation is portrayed as a disease, transferred from a young woman who attacks him in public. This metallic affliction rapidly affects every aspect of his life, down to his fatal assault on his wife. It is violent and fatal, yet the film ends with the Salaryman’s transformation complete - what has been destroyed has given way to new life - a form of evolution.
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