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Dai-Nihojin
Big Man Japan
Japan 2007
produced by Akihiko Okamoto, Hitoshi Matsumoto (planner), Hisaya Shiraiwa (executive), Isao Yoshino (executive), Hiroshi Osaki (executive) for RealProduct, Yoshimoto Kogyo Company/Shochiku
directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto
starring Hitoshi Matsumoto, Riki Takeuchi, Ua, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Haruka Unabara, Tomoji Hasegawa, Itsuji Itao, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Takayuki Haranishi, Daisuke Miyagawa, Takuya Hashimoto, Taichi Yazaki, Shion Machida, Atsuko Nakamura, Daisuke Nagakura, Motohiro Toriki, Keidai Yano, Junshiro Hayama, Koichi Kitamura, Norio Nakayama, Kiyozumi Honda, Satoya Ishii, Seijiro Nakamura, Yuki Baba
written by Hitoshi Matsumoto, Mitsuyoshi Takasu, music by Towa Tei, special effects by Tomo Hyakutake
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Masaru (Hitoshi Matusmoto) leads a boring and miserable life: His wife
has left him with his daughter, he's got hardly enough money for anything,
hardly has any friends, has to take care of a senile grandfather (Taichi
Yazaki), and lives in a run-down place. And yet, he is the most important
person in all of Japan, because you know, with the help of electricity and
magic, he transforms into a giant who fights the bizarre giant monsters
who regularly attack Japan. But saving Japan from giant monsters isn't
what it once was anymore: When granddad was on the job, he was a national
hero, but nowadays the success of Masaru's fights against Japan's foes
depends more on how they do in the TV ratings than the actual outcome. And
to support his mission, Masaru has to actually wear advertisements of his
sponsors on his body during his fights. Also, Masaru isn't exactly a good
let alone courageous fighter, he wins his fights mostly because his foes
are pretty useless monsters (especially the one that looks like a headless
ostrich with an eye penis), but when faced with a real fighter like the
red devil-like giant, Masaru runs and hides, to leave saving Japan to the
giant robot family Super Defense Team ... A parody of Japanese kaiju
eiga (= giant monster films) and giant robot TV-series, this is a
movie full of great ideas, funny sightgags and inventive special effects -
and yet, the film could have been better. The reason for this lies in the
film's deliberately incoherent structure where CGI-fueled monster fights
are juxtaposed with long unspectacular, documentary-style stretches of
Masaru's everyday life. Now this clash of opposing cinematic languages
works well for a while but gets a bit too repetitive before too long,
especially since what I would dub as the realistic scenes are not too
funnyon their own. This still leaves the film to be a collection of fun
scenes - it just could have been more.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Thanks for watching !!!
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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