Big Man Japan (2007)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Big Man Japan (Dai-Nipponjin): 4 out of 10: I had such high hopes for this one; really high hopes. I love monster movies and while the idea that a man turns into a giant to protect Tokyo from the various monsters that attack. This idea, which is kind of Jet Jaguar (Godzilla vs. Megalon) crossed with Apache Chief (Super Friends), seems like perfect Anime material.Big Man Japan is a live action mockumentary however. Yes feel free to groan now. Look I loved this is Spinal Tap as much as the next bloke, but the reason Spinal Tap worked was not because it was a fake documentary but because Stonehenge statue was 6 inches tall and in danger of being crushed by dancing dwarfs.If you fake a documentary and don't write jokes and funny bits it simply is a boring documentary that isn't true. This whole 'the character and situations provide an inside laugh' does not work. You got to write some bloody jokes.Eighty percent of Big Man Japan consists of our hero,who is a dead wringer for Neil (the hippie) from The Young Ones, sitting. Sometimes he sits and rambles on about how bad his life is and sometimes, as God as my witness, he just sits. In what possible universe is this entertainment? The monster stuff tries too hard as well. Okay that is not completely accurate, since the city design is so lacking in detail and believability one must assume it looks that fake on purpose. It is the monsters themselves however that seem to strain to get a laugh. (Ooh a giant hairy scrotum with an extended eyeball.) But at least the monster bits were trying to be funny and in their own way were well done, which is more than can be said for the rest of the film.

BIG MAN JAPAN is a very clever spoof on 'The Super Hero Genre'. Depressed and middle-aged Daisato plugs along as a second-rate protector of Japan. The film depicts an altered reality in which cartoon monsters sporadically appear to create mischief and mayhem. The Big Man does what he can, but ends up causing as much confusion and destruction as he prevents. Plagued by waning popularity, the erosion of his powers, and family problems, he stoically soldiers on. As a documentary, the film succeeds admirably. We see this man robbed of his destiny, and watch as he explains his half-hearted efforts to regain some sort of balance between what he was, and what he has become. However, the film's special effects are cheesy, but actually add to the representation of a man stuck firmly in a meager existence. Daisato's life is entirely devoid of any social support network. He visits a grandfather, but this man is suffering from dementia in a nursing home, and is in worse shape than our hero. Daisato is allowed visitation with his wife and daughter twice a year, and his 'friendships' are paid geisha girls with whom he drinks heavily. Although a comedy, BIG MAN JAPAN, is not as funny as it is poignant, and this fact makes it a cut above.

Here in the good old Second-Depression-Era United States, moviegoers have very little to look forward to: we get gussied-up video games masquerading as movies (or cgi cartoons all geared to the Special Needs kids), or an endless series of killbilly murder movies that beget yet more killbilly murder movies (because they makes money, and money talks), or alleged comedies (or romances) that elicit only groans, or big-budget movies based on creatively-worthless television shows or... Let me catch my breath. Whew. Where I was...? Oh, yeah: let's all clasp our hands and bow our heads and thank Japan for movies like BIG MAN JAPAN. Although most of us will only experience these gems on video, that's a relatively small price to pay for being able to see them at all. I haven't laughed this hard since I saw Knob Zombie's killbilly classic, HOLLERWEEN TWO. Sato-san goes from a figurative zero (a "loser" on a superhero TV show) to sixty (feet) in a matter of minutes once electricity has been applied to various "points" on his body. (We see him standing naked inside a giant pair of trunks strung between what amounts to a pair of telephone poles, waiting to be jolted into gigantism. It's at once hysterical, yet practical: once the change is effected, he needs SOME kind of... costume...) His toe-to-toe slugfests with a wide variety of kaiju have to be seen to be appreciated (and he's not averse to trying to avoid conflict by talking a giant monster into leaving town). The abrupt change from state-of-the-art cgi to live-action scenes near the end is gut-bustingly funny: the cheesy foam rubber appliances hark back to the rubber-wear sported by so many BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters) in so many kaiju classics (from the original GOJIRA to ULTRAMAN- and beyond). We even see the strings that haul our hero(oes) away (who are, of course, doubled by what are clearly dolls). All of this reminded me of a double feature I saw as a kid: GODZILLA (sic) VS. THE SMOG MONSTER and WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS. At one point in one of these two movies (I don't remember which; they blur), a kaiju kicks a pile of toy cars out of his way. On the Big Screen, one could clearly read the name of the toy manufacturer on the bottom of one of the overturned vehicles: Tonka. BIG MAN JAPAN takes me back to them good ol' days, when movies was just plain fun. Domo arigato.

The problem with this movie is simple. Bad editing. Loved the concept. Loved the monster fight scenes. Loved the smallness of the main character's regular life. But I hated the slow slow pace. Hated the amount of completely uninteresting nothingness between the interesting parts.No doubt the director and the editor talked a lot about creating a mood and setting up comedic pace. But geeez, we live in a Twitter world of 140 characters.Still, this is a movie that will get better with familiarity. One that, if you can sit through the first 3 or 4 watchings, will be hilarious to quote back and forth between friends. There are definitely good things here. :) What I would absolutely LOVE to see this film be re-edited down to maybe 80 or 90 minutes. It could be really tight. Please, someone, anyone, even an amateur, re-edit this movie. It would be a great student project - to save this movie from its own festering pacing.