उपयोगकर्ता समीक्षाएं

It's weird that this movie is portrayed as a comedy because this is actually a serious film for the most part. It's a mockumentary, but it's played as completely serious, not like Spinal Tap. The movie takes its premise very seriously. It's actually a pretty sad film, despite its comedic portrayal in the trailer. It's a very quiet film, almost introspective at times. It's an observance of Japanese culture and how they don't really like giant monsters anymore...but in this world, the giant monsters still exist. And Daisuke is unappreciated as such. Very cool film, but I didn't find it quite as uproariously hilarious as it's portrayed. That's what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what I got. Not that that was a bad thing! I just didn't get what I was expecting at all.

All in all a good film. The ending is pretty ridiculous and it moves slowly at times, but it was a rather deep film, and when it tried to be funny, it definitely hit its mark.

Strangely paced, unflinchingly crazy and brow-furrowingly confusing, this is a tough movie to get a handle on. It's pseudo-documentary in the same style as Christopher Guest, but with a less obvious comedic timing, more humble, unassuming characters and a hefty injection of pure, unabashed Japanese absurdity. The camera's focal point is Masaru, a soft spoken middle-aged loser with a going-nowhere life and zero self confidence, who nonchalantly moonlights as the fifteen-story tall, nearly naked hero "Big Japanese Man." Despite saving the city from a series of rampaging monsters, public interest in his work is waning and he's beginning to find it difficult to make ends meet. Excruciatingly slow at points, it has a few interesting things to say about the longevity of the superheroic profession and the notoriously fickle nature of public favor, but much of that is lost beneath the burden of such a painfully dull lead character. Its dry, bizarre sense of humor hits the mark more often than not, and the CGI fight scenes make for quite the spectacle, but this really didn't need to be half as long as it is. Fans of the eccentricities of Japanese culture will have a ball with it, although they'll have to wade through some arid terrain to get to the good stuff. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly happened in the last scene.

I'm embarrased to admit I avoided this film for years, despite its appearance in several curated movie collections, because it looked rather bad. Fortunately I finally caved after watching other Matsumoto films that were creative, hilarious, sad and unique, with deeper layers beyond their insanity as to never succumb to being weird for weirdness sake alone.

Dai-Nihonjin shares all these strengths with the dryness levels on the humour-knob turned up to severe skin-chafing levels. This will put off many viewers not familiar with this style of japanese comedy best exemplified by the cult director SABU's filmography.

As a deconstruction of tropes this is a rather genius work of art. The faux-documentary style enhances the absurdity of the situations and at the same time gives real weight to the plight of the hero, the eponymous Dainihonjin. Turns out having to be a hero sucks, it destroys your life, nobody likes you and maybe you're only making things worse for everyone.

A lot of what makes this movie so charming is the intentionally bad CGI for the creatures that are somehow both hilarious and oddly terrifying. It reminded me of the bizarre existentialist Dreamcast game Seaman which is always appreciated. There are so many clever elements here that are always glossed over in other movies or comics like this. Just how do you solve the whole underwear problem when you grow from human to giant size and back?

Beneath the comedy there is some genuinely smart commentary on the media, society and strangely enough international relations of Japan to its neighbors. While this is presented in a rather understated and subtle manner, being played straight thoughout, it all eventually erupts like a comedy volcano in the final ten minutes and just totally bludgeons you over the head. I can't remember the last time I've laughed this hard. I was in actual pain.

This is a hard film to recommend to more mainstream audiences but it's so genuine, creative and hilarious that it deserves more viewers.

Big Man Japan is one of the weirder films I've seen from Japan and anyone who's passingly familiar with Japanese cinema knows what a statement that is. Starring, written by, directed by and produced by one man comedy auteur Hitoshi Matusmoto, Big Man Japan tells the tale of Masaru Daisato also known as Big Man Japan, the giant 30 foot tall super hero that defends Japan from invading monsters in a similar vein to Ultraman and other Kaiju films.

The twist being that everything in Masaru's life, including his monster fighting, absolutely sucks and the people of Japan hate him and think he's terrible at his job.

That's a brilliant high concept but it's not really the film that Big Man Japan gives us, and partly that's why the film is so odd. It's not the subject matter, although stuff like a giant starfish/vagina monster that stinks is pretty oddball, but rather the tone. Big Man Japan is deadpan to the point that it seems sometimes to be actively taunting the audience with how unfunny it's being. Long sequences of the film are taken up with Masaru eating at a noodle place, driving his scooter, talking about how he likes umbrellas and doing other mundane tasks all filmed in a documentary style with minimal camera movement and subtle acting. It's actively boring at times but it seems to be intentional because the central gag is presenting the absurd and surreal monster battles in as deadpan and ordinary a way as the mundane aspects of Masaru's life. The long boring segments means the eventual pay off of a giant pair of purple pants seems all the funnier. Not that the documentary segments are without humour, particularly the scene with Masaru's daughter in her bunny hat and pixelated face, but it's a subtler humour than the giant electric nipples or enormous cat eared baby spouting poetry. Tolerance for this level of deadpan is likely to be low though so it's certainly not a film with wide appeal.

People have moaned about the special effects for this feature but frankly on the budget this film had, and especially considering they're using motion capture technology I think they look great and even add to the humour since, again they mix the oddball and the deadpan. Being able to see the actor's facial expressions is much more important than a good looking suit or smooth CGI when you're doing this kind of subtle comedy.

One final note, the last ten minutes of this film are absolutely hysterical. Having built up the threat of this unknown red monster with Masaru running away from it and finally having to face it again at the end we're all primed for a typical redemption story where Masaru overcomes his own incompetence and beats the big bad. I won't spoil the ending but suffice it to say the film undercuts this expected trope in the most ludicrous and hilarious manner possible. Much as individual scenes have a slow, tedious, excruciating, agonisingly, long build up to a gag so the film as a whole is 90 minutes of deadpan and 10 minutes of utter unrestrained insanity that had me laughing like a loon.

For more film reviews check out www.wordpress.mummy.com or find out more about at http://about.me/AdamHalls

A dull guy gets zapped with electricity to turn him into a giant so that he can battle monster that attack Japan, there's a good idea for a film if ever I've heard one. There's some funny bits at the start as we learn that the general public don't think a lot of him but from then on the film just disappoints again and again.

I can take the poor CGI but it does look absolutely rubbish. The monsters are supposed to be hilarious but just aren't funny at all and the whole theme of him being a bit of a loser wears thin quickly.

When I read the gushing reviews for this film I really loved the concept and it sounded like something I'd really enjoy, unfortunately a lot of it is just plain boring and the wry dry humour is stretched well beyond the material. I wouldn't waste your time, it's a good idea squandered.

Big Man Japan (Dai-Nipponjin): 4 out of 10: I had such high hopes for this one; really high hopes. I love monster movies and while the idea that a man turns into a giant to protect Tokyo from the various monsters that attack. This idea, which is kind of Jet Jaguar (Godzilla vs. Megalon) crossed with Apache Chief (Super Friends), seems like perfect Anime material.

Big Man Japan is a live action mockumentary however. Yes feel free to groan now. Look I loved this is Spinal Tap as much as the next bloke, but the reason Spinal Tap worked was not because it was a fake documentary but because Stonehenge statue was 6 inches tall and in danger of being crushed by dancing dwarfs.

If you fake a documentary and don't write jokes and funny bits it simply is a boring documentary that isn't true. This whole 'the character and situations provide an inside laugh' does not work. You got to write some bloody jokes.

Eighty percent of Big Man Japan consists of our hero,who is a dead wringer for Neil (the hippie) from The Young Ones, sitting. Sometimes he sits and rambles on about how bad his life is and sometimes, as God as my witness, he just sits. In what possible universe is this entertainment? The monster stuff tries too hard as well. Okay that is not completely accurate, since the city design is so lacking in detail and believability one must assume it looks that fake on purpose. It is the monsters themselves however that seem to strain to get a laugh. (Ooh a giant hairy scrotum with an extended eyeball.) But at least the monster bits were trying to be funny and in their own way were well done, which is more than can be said for the rest of the film.

BIG MAN JAPAN is a very clever spoof on 'The Super Hero Genre'. Depressed and middle-aged Daisato plugs along as a second-rate protector of Japan. The film depicts an altered reality in which cartoon monsters sporadically appear to create mischief and mayhem. The Big Man does what he can, but ends up causing as much confusion and destruction as he prevents. Plagued by waning popularity, the erosion of his powers, and family problems, he stoically soldiers on. As a documentary, the film succeeds admirably. We see this man robbed of his destiny, and watch as he explains his half-hearted efforts to regain some sort of balance between what he was, and what he has become. However, the film's special effects are cheesy, but actually add to the representation of a man stuck firmly in a meager existence. Daisato's life is entirely devoid of any social support network. He visits a grandfather, but this man is suffering from dementia in a nursing home, and is in worse shape than our hero. Daisato is allowed visitation with his wife and daughter twice a year, and his 'friendships' are paid geisha girls with whom he drinks heavily. Although a comedy, BIG MAN JAPAN, is not as funny as it is poignant, and this fact makes it a cut above.

The problem with this movie is simple. Bad editing. Loved the concept. Loved the monster fight scenes. Loved the smallness of the main character's regular life. But I hated the slow slow pace. Hated the amount of completely uninteresting nothingness between the interesting parts.

No doubt the director and the editor talked a lot about creating a mood and setting up comedic pace. But geeez, we live in a Twitter world of 140 characters.

Still, this is a movie that will get better with familiarity. One that, if you can sit through the first 3 or 4 watchings, will be hilarious to quote back and forth between friends. There are definitely good things here. :) What I would absolutely LOVE to see this film be re-edited down to maybe 80 or 90 minutes. It could be really tight. Please, someone, anyone, even an amateur, re-edit this movie. It would be a great student project - to save this movie from its own festering pacing.

Hitoshi Matsumoto is one of a rare breed of comedians with a special gift. Tommy Cooper had it, Billy Connelly has it sometimes - the ability to make you laugh the moment they appear on stage. I've followed Matsumoto and Downtown since 1989, when I first encountered them on the sketch comedy show Yume de Aetara. A lot of his experimental comedy on the small screen since then has been outrageous, cerebral and/or scatological. It is almost always riotous, and for that reason I was expecting more of the same here. Part of Matsumoto's genius is in how he reigns in his basic instincts, creating a tension for domestic audiences, while also fashioning a clever narrative with universal appeal. That tension makes for a glorious release when classic Matsumoto moments do appear, such as standing in front of giant purple underpants, or the edit to his pixel-ated daughter in a bunny hat declaiming her indifference to her father, in contrast to the sentimental speech on her he has just given.

Many Japanese geinojin seem fettered by the jimusho system that controls their creative output, and you feel sympathy for the truly talented ones who seem capable of so much more than the usual prime-time foolishness (Takuya Kimura, take note). I always had a sneaking suspicion Downtown's Hamada-san could rise to a serious dramatic role if given the chance, so it is a pleasant surprise to be blind-sided by Matsumoto here. Understated, even moving in places, with a wonderfully comic climactic scene where the 'traditional' Matsumoto surfaces, Big Man Japan is a refreshing addition to Matsumoto's array of comic talent. Small mention to Ua as the mercenary manager, a cold-blooded portrayal. Was Matsumoto having a sly dig at his Jimusho's creative accounting? Matsumoto bites the hand that feeds here, but then feeds them in turn with the grosses this film has earned. The man is practically re-inventing the term irony, in art and in his life. Genius.

Matsumoto is a member of comedy duo Down Town, he's a No.1 comedian in Japan present. His vision is very surreal and it makes him so special. I'm a huge fan myself, however I'm not so happy about Dai Nippon Jin. I recommend his early works like Visualbum series, To-Zu or Hitori-Gottsu series instead. Those are more fun and lyrical, overall it's unique.

I'd say he should work with his friends together again like in his early days. Though, I know they are all big now, there's some problem working together. But it's my dream that Matsumoto working with Mr. Itao full time making a picture together. It should be a great surreal comedy flick.

Actually, Itao appearing few minutes as smelly monster in this film. I always laugh my head off seeing that, but it's not enough, cos considering their talent, they can do more than that.

Maybe Matsumoto's weak point is working with strangers and that huge budget. Probably, big budget gave him big pressure mentally, and couldn't concentrate. his talent will definitely explode when solving those problems. Working with his close friends, making it with low budget. I'm expecting his next work.

I enjoy this movie. It's has made me laugh until i have cried, but i have a bad sense of humor so there's that too.

From what I have read about this movie, it is a satire on Marvel characters particularly the Hulk. It is plaid so deadpan you might switch off but there are several bits in this that had me in fits.

It just about lasts for it's runtime , any longer and I think it would have started to wear thin. I must say, the last /endcredits sequence is truly bizarre and frankly quite mad that you might be left thinking what the hell did I just watch.

It was funny and entertaining enough PLUS I was in receptive state of mind.. I gives it 7.

It is a very welcome antidote indeed to the saturation of Marvel movies... It kept my interest which was non-existant with Dr Strange II, an odious piece of junk. Imo : )

Being a fan of director/star Hitoshi Matsumoto's Symbol (2009) didn't truly prepare me for Big Man Japan. Watching any of his films is sure to give any casual viewer a case of cultural whiplash yet Big Man Japan is an entirely different beast. It's a film that in many ways is much more grounded in its themes, telling a very human tale of frustrated potential and quiet desperation. Yet visually Big Man Japan is so f***ing bizarre; uncomfortably mixing the monster destroys tiny models, Power Rangers (1993-1996) aesthetic, while using computer generated kaijus that can only be described as Giger- esque.

Matsumoto plays Masaru Daisato, a lonely Japanese man in his early forties living in a decrepit house in Tokyo. Most days he stays at home avoiding the public, venturing out only when he's in the mood for his favorite super noodle shop. He has reason to be nonplussed, his ex- wife (Machida) has custody of his young daughter, the government gives him a measly pension to live on, and his agent (Ua) is finding increasingly contrived ways to get rich off of Masaru's good name. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, when the country is threatened by a city-sized kaiju, Masaru must run to the nearest power station, is electrocuted and is turned into Big Man Japan, Japan's twenty- stories tall protector. He's the latest in a long line of protectors and since the "glory days" of his grandfather(Yazaki), his presence is seen with a mix of ambivalence and hostility.

Thematically, Big Man Japan acts as a counter-piece to the justifiably maligned Hancock (2008). The concept is pretty much the same but instead of a misanthropic Will Smith we get a quietly depressed giant and instead of an earnest against-type Jason Bateman we get Japanese popstar Ua constantly clacking away at her Nokia flip-phone. Yet here the overly complicated mythology sorta kind of works. Much of the history of the monsters are given via flashlight illuminated dossier which can be annoying, yet much of the inner logic of the film is left unexplained and inferred visually. This can either be seen as one of Big Man Japan's greatest assets or one of it's most jarring byproducts.

Additionally other than the battle sequences between Big Man and the monsters, most of the story is told in a faux cinema verite style. This fly-on-the-wall objectivity let's Matsumoto to truly encapsulate the character in all his underplayed absurdity while giving most things emotional weight and resonance. Stories involving Masaru's overly ambitious father (Toriki) and his now senile grandfather fondly remembered as "The Fourth" prove especially disquieting.

If only the battle sequences had the same effect. Despite being prominently featured in promotional materials, they almost appear to be lifted out of another movie entirely, functioning with different pacing and different instincts when it comes to humor. The modelling for downtown Tokyo and Nagoya prove chintzy and the monsters design make them resemble the Macarena baby put through Dr. Frankenstein experiments. Maybe with a bigger budget or a more efficient division of resources, these sequences could have been the nightmare-fuel Matsumoto intend them to be. As it stands, they're just kind of dull.

Big Man Japan has all the makings of a cult film. Seeded with a very good high-concept, the flick is mindbogglingly bizarre, sporadically funny and a little more complex than most would give it credit for. Yet it's also repulsively alien in form and presentation guaranteeing that only the least discerning of American audiences will find something worth watching. Otherwise, apart from a hallucinogenic ending that channels the runaway ridiculousness of South Park (1997-Present), I'd just skip it and see something else.

Wow this movie sucked big time, it was just a waste of time. I don't get the humor in this and I get Japanese humor but this wasn't funny at all and boring. The movie is about some homeless looking guy, turning into this giant guy with a diaper going around with a stick in had in order to fight monster and if he ain't fighting monster he is doing these boring interviews, than rinse and repeat. I don't know if the director wanted to be artsy or make this into a cult movie but it fails. It seems the director relied too heavily on being awkward with it's weird dialogue and monsters. Just avoid this, and who ever finds this film funny or comical is either a weeaboo or trying way too hard.

3/10

I got a chance to see this at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I found this to be a quite refreshing and one of the more original films I've seen in the past little while.

A brief synopsis, is that a documentary film crew follows a mid-age slacker who basically has nothing going for him in life... but what's odd is he has the power to grow to the size of a building and fight monsters ("baddies").

The comedy during the interviews and daily life of Dai is very subtle. There is no music track and his facial expression are very mute. The monster scenes are hilarious, and the last 10 minutes made me laugh so hard.

If you are very open minded with comedy, this is for you, but don't expect a typical giant monster movie.

After watching the trailer i really wanted to see Big Man Japan. However, it quickly turned out that i was a victim of advertising. Not that the best moments were used, but the only moments worth watching were in that trailer.

Although i'm curious and ready to explore the Seventh Art, it was difficult to find anything that would attract my attention. The situation was even more sensible, since i talked in some people around me to watch the movie and had to explain that we're watching a comedy.

In a way, i'm giving two stars to the trailer. The movie itself is not watchable.

I saw this as part of the 2nd to last movie of Midnight Madness 2007 at the Toronto International Film Festival... This is such a bizarre absurdly funny movie especially the last 30 minutes of the film...

I think I was in the minority of the movie viewers since most of the people there were of Japanese or Chinese decent.. But regardless of what your culture everyone was enjoying the film. I have to wonder if the film makers ran out of money for the final battle scene.. Too funny..

Hopefully this will get picked up for domestic distribution in North America it would do well for the intended audience...

Only in Japan...

...Would something as obscure and crazy like this see the light of day!

"Big Man Japan" ("Dai-Nihonjin") is about a rather plain middle-aged man named Masaru Daisatô (played by Hitoshi Matsumoto) who is capable of turning into a giant in order to fight the monsters that threaten Japan. However, the giant, despite his efforts to help people, is disliked and openly ridiculed by the people he is supposed to be protecting and helping.

The only thing more surreal than Masaru Daisatô's hair, were the monsters that he was fighting. I will say that the Japanese have a weird sense of imagination. These monsters were funny and actually well enough made. Some very bizarre creations here that you are guaranteed not to see anywhere else.

"Big Man Japan" has some good enough effects, although the CGI could be spotted a mile away. But still, it worked out well enough. And to bring the movie from strange and bizarre into being just downright absurd was the ending, where the superheroes showed up. And just when you thought you had seen it all...

The good thing about "Big Man Japan" is that it is a spoof on the monster genre that has been making its way out of Japan. And not taking itself serious, in the regards as monster sightings have been less and less in recent years, as they said in the movie.

I didn't really enjoy "Big Man Japan" and found it to be somewhat of a struggle to get through. But I am sure that a movie as odd and bizarre as this would have instantly found a following of fans, because the movie is unique, I will say that much. I have seen worse Japanese movies, and as such, then I am rating this a mediocre 5 out of 10 rating.