Back in 2007 one of the last movies I saw at Toronto was Dainipponjin, a mockumentary about a sadsack loner who, every once in a while, has to transform into a giant Ultraman-type ‘hero’ in order to battle big monsters and save Tokyo. But he’s a drunk, always causes a lot of property damage and no-one much likes him. The cat’s image is in major need of repair.
Naturally, when real details started to come out about Hancock, this is the movie I thought of. And until today, when I finally looked at the new trailer, I totally forgot that it might be called Big Man Japan over here.
The clip does a great job of selling the film. Highlighted are the rubbery, intentionally goofy CGI effects and the overall sense of Kaiju Big Battle-style insanity. What you don’t see is that the film is a slowly paced character piece, and that there are long dull stretches between the craziness. Like some of Takashi Miike’s movies, chopping twenty minutes away from the two-hour running time would help a lot.
Granted, this film has the most insane last five minutes I’ve seen in an intentionally outlandish genre piece in a while. Not necessarily great; just wild and WAY out there.
Magnolia/Magnet releases the film in May as part of Magnet’s ‘Six Shooter’ series. I’ve embedded the trailer below, or you can see it in HD at Apple.