But the film written, directed and starring stand-up comic Hitoshi Matsumoto has, like most superheroes, a tragic flaw: It isn't funny.
Big Man Japan(大日本人)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Japan · 2007
Rated PG-13 · 1h 53m
Director Hitoshi Matsumoto
Starring Hitoshi Matsumoto, UA, Itsuji Itao, Ryunosuke Kamiki
Genre Action, Animation, Comedy, Science Fiction
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Daisato is a middle-aged slacker living in Tokyo. He is a completely ordinary man, but he has a decidedly extraordinary ability: he can grow hundreds of feet tall using electricity. This mockumentary follows the not-so-superhero as he defends Japan from large monsters, struggling to live up to the long line of heroes he comes from.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Matsumoto isn't the first Japanese director to go all meta on the superhero tradition (consider also Takashi Miike's 2004 "Zebraman"), but this work of improbable lunacy may well max out the genre.
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
When a movie is this strange, it's gotta count for something.
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
The effects are reasonably well-created, though hardly transparent. The last 15 minutes of the film spins out into unimaginable realms. Fans of this kind of stuff will leave smitten; those accompanying them to the theatre will have a pretty good time too.
The New York Times by Nathan Lee
The most impressive special effect here is Mr. Matsumoto's hilariously restrained performance, a tour de force of comedic concision in a movie bloated by increasingly surreal developments.
At nearly two hours, Big Man Japan is clever (in a sick sort of way) but overlong. It needs judicious editing -- more mockumentary, fewer superhero antics.
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