Big Man Japan (2007/MagNet DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Feature: B-
Daisato
is, by all appearances, an extremely average guy, perhaps even bordering on
pathetic. He’s separated from his wife
who only lets him see their daughter twice a year, he lives alone with a cat,
and he visits his senile grandfather in the nursing home whenever he can. But when giant monsters threaten Japan,
Daisato, as the last scion of a family of heroes, grows hundreds of feet tall
to defend his country. It might be nice
if he got paid a little bit more for it though.
Shot
mostly in a faux-documentary style, Big
Man Japan is fueled by absurdity, irony, and an achingly wry and awkward
humor. The story never really congeals
into a plot in the strictest sense of the word, but blends a PBS documentary
style with creatively executed CG monster battles.
Big Man Japan is not like anything you’ve seen
before. Though it lampoons Japanese
superheroes and Kajiu (giant monster) films, it’s so steeped in it’s own skewed,
absurdist view of Japanese life that it remains fresh even for an audience
unfamiliar with Ultraman, Godzilla, and the other source material that Big Man Japan draws from.
The
picture quality is not the best and the sound is very obviously recorded on
set, but these are stylistic choices to emphasize the faux-documentary style of
the film. Even so, the Dolby Digital 5.1
(or 2.0) audio is surprisingly clear. The
film is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio in Japanese with English or Spanish
subtitles.
The extra
features on the disc are few, but long. The deleted scenes total over fifty minutes
and the “Making Of” stretches over an
hour. This Making Of has the added option of a commentary track, though why
Magnet thinks that anyone would watch an hour-long special feature more than
once is a mystery. On top of that, the Making Of has very distinct high and low
points ranging from, “This is very fun and informative,” to, “Why have I spent
the last ten minutes watching five different development meetings with no
audio?”
Whether
you decide to sit through the special features or not, the film itself is
excellent and a lot of fun for anyone with a healthy sense of irony, an
interest in Japanese cinema, or preferably both.
- Matthew Carrick
