Der große Japaner (2007)

Der große Japaner: Directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto. With Hitoshi Matsumoto, Riki Takeuchi, Ua, Ryûnosuke Kamiki. An eccentric man living alone in a decrepit house in Tokyo periodically transforms into a 100-foot tall giant in order to defend Japan against similarly sized monsters.

“Hitoshi Matsumotou0026#39;s wonderfully deadpan u0026quot;Big Man Japanu0026quot; (u0026quot;Dai-Nihonjin) is a brilliantly hilarious send up of Japanu0026#39;s giant monster movies of yesteryear. A postmodernist at heart, Matsumoto flips the genre conventions, grounding the beautifully weird world of u0026quot;Big Man Japanu0026quot; in reality through a dry mocumentary style that mixes interviews, archival footage and computer animated fight scenes with a razoru0026#39;s wit.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMasaru Daisato is the latest in a long legacy of men who grow to mammoth proportions when juiced with electricity. Masaru spends most of his time as a normal-sized human being, surviving on a meager government stipend in a grimy suburb of Tokyo. But when strange monsters attack (and believe me they are strange), Masaru is hooked up to a power plant and juiced with enough electricity to grow into a purple underweared giant.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNot that any of this endears Masaru to the citizens of Japan. The road to the power plant is plastered with signs critical of Masaruu0026#39;s actions and abilities. His house is covered in threatening graffiti and vandalized on a daily basis. Masaru is an outsider in a country of insiders, a colorful anachronism in increasingly bland times.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003ePerspective is a central theme in u0026quot;Big Man Japanu0026quot;u0026#39;s giant monster weirdness. Does having the ability to turn into a giant and save the country from destructive building-stomping monsters make you a hero or a freak? It all depends on who you ask.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s no doubt that Masaru is a loser. When not attacking giant monsters with a large pipe, Masaru sits in his graffiti-covered home eating dehydrated seaweed (u0026quot;It only grows big when you need it.u0026quot;) while neighbors throw bricks through his windows. Masaruu0026#39;s wife and daughter have left him, photos are all that remains of his professionu0026#39;s illustrious past and his show routinely earns less ratings than the weather report. No one ever said it was easy being big.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd perhaps this is the biggest joke in Matsumotou0026#39;s wonderfully awkward film. Godzilla eventually became a friend of the children, saving Japan from countless invading monsters, but he was always a foreigner. Godzilla called Monster Island home, not the gray slums of Tokyo. Ultraman was from outer space not Osaka. This is an important difference. Forced to live among the very people he fights to protect, Masaru became the biggest oddity in a hegemonic society based on Confucian values.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe world of u0026quot;Big Man Japanu0026quot; is one of dashed hopes and squandered potential, a world where Masaruu0026#39;s senile grandfather, made so by repeated exposure to high levels of electricity, zaps himself giant and wanders through the city. And the monsters, as outrageously weird as they may be, never actually seem threatening in any way.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eInstead, the creatures, with their comb-overs, phallic eyes and sexual perversions seem as oblivious as children that their actions do any harm. Masaru dispatches the beasts by clubbing them once in the head, not through a long drawn out fight, and their souls ascend to heaven in a campy 8-bit video game fashion.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd by the end, when Matsumoto drops the mocumentary cameras and the computer animation for a ridiculous symbolism-heavy homage to cheesy rubber suits and miniature sets fare like u0026quot;Ultramanu0026quot; it hardly makes sense but is hilarious nonetheless. I wouldu0026#39;ve preferred u0026quot;Big Man Japanu0026quot; didnu0026#39;t end with an allegory about Japan-China relations and the reliance on the American military for protection filtered through campy 1970s kaiju sensibilities but what the hell, it was one crazy ride.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTaken from http://www.midnighttrash.net/?p=677 MidnightTrash.net: Your guide to everything under the radar.”