I Am a Hero

First, let me say this first - I read the manga this movie was based upon.

This movie depicted the manga beautifully. The zombies were scary,as they should. You could feel how dangerous they are, which is very important in zombie films & shows. If you can't feel danger from the zombies in the film, that film probably has bad characters.

The cgi was beautiful. It looked real and not heavily cgi'd. The ending was awesome.

Watch it. You won't regret it.

If you are a big zombie film fan, this should be your next flick to check it out. This is a Japanese live-action film adapted from the manga series of the same name. I am not saying it was the best zombie film ever, or the decade or even the year, but surely a better film compared to the recent ones. First of all the story is same as most of the same themed films, that the zombie outbreak brings chaos everywhere, and followed by the survival game. The difference in here was the characters and some of the great scenes that lifted the film up.

Hideo, also pronounced as Hero is a 'best newcomer' manga artist award winner a few years back. Now in his 30s looking for a breakthrough in his career. But after receiving a backlash when his book was denied to publish and followed by break up with his girlfriend, he begins to witness a series of strange events around him. While the entire city turned into madness, he and a random school girl join the hands to escape from the horror. So their journey begins to nowhere, but be safe. Later a couple of twists come into play and brings an end to the narration.

The script was not praiseworthy, but the filmmaking was, including the performances. The actors had given their best shots. The scenes involving the conflict between humans and zombies were carved so awesomely. Being a film fanatic, I'm used to this kind of themes, so none of these flicks can scare me. Not just the sci-fi horror films, but also the supernatural horrors. That's a drawback. But if I was a normal guy or a little kid, this film would have been in a different league. Still, I enjoyed it. Because overall film offered me a great entertainment.

"What you seek isn't dream anymore! It's delusion. Only a small, special group of people can achieve success."

I don't understand the Japanese, except a few simple words, but from my observation, they never mentioned the word 'zombie'. They called it by the virus that caused it, ZQN. I don't know what those alphabets stand for, but all I got was the word 'Zokyun'. The equivalent English word is 'bang', like a sudden sharp thud sound. Anyway, coming to the film, the characters are unpredictable. You can't trust anyone of them, except our lead guy. Not just because of the infection, but their intentions, more like it is about survival of the fittest. I mean like usual, the man's weakness, power hungry.

After Hideo, the school girl Hiromi is the next in the lead, but there's nothing much to expect from her. They kept that role very mysterious, that I was looking for an explanation which never came. That was really disappointing, but it also mean a hint of a possible sequel. I hope they make one, after all this film was received so well. The details in the film were very impressive, even the small ones. Not just they focused the human characters, they have given strength to zombies to strike the survived human ruthlessly, but uniquely like an athlete. So basically, no traditional zombie theory was followed. They bent the rules to make it a unique product, as well as to entertain the viewers, mostly funnily.

Shot in the fine places, especially in the second half. This film redefined the zombie film from those days before the evolution of superheroes and space-age flicks. It was a perfect mix of comedy, action and thriller. But I laughed surely better than those recent full length comedy flicks that had best comedians. This is not a remake material, so I'm not expecting the west to do that. Like I always say, whatever world film I watch, I'm happy to end up in a Japanese or a French film. It was a bit long, worth it though. I am not overwhelmed and blindly recommending it, but this film was really good, particularly if you like black comedy, sort of.

7/10

It's not a good movie. I think it will find a fan base in people who are obsessed with Japanese culture, but it's not a good product.

I love zombie movies, but this one just has zombies to illustrate that the lead is useless. And he sure is! Basically all scenes that happen happen because zombies attack him. They all end with someone saving his life or him getting lucky because some random thing happens and saves his life - repeat 100 times over. There are even several scenes where just saying something to a person would have saved their life, or hero doesn't even do that. The only really proactive scene he has where he does something proactive to save the day is at the very end where he freaks out and uses his shotgun for the first time. Then uses it 100 times more in the same scene. For like 10 minutes in a row.

There is maybe plot enough here for 30-40 minutes. And even then you would have to completely rewrite all the characters so that they would do something and try to achieve some goal. Any goal.

Disgusting zombies running after losers for 2 hours and the losers getting randomly lucky in every scene gets boring really fast. There is no likeable character here and I'm not even sure what any of the characters in the movie really wanted. The bad guy wanted to... lead? The protagonist wanted to... use his shotgun? Not really as he didn't use it when he should have. We know he would survive anyhow just be shear luck. So it didn't matter anyhow. There are also many scenes where people just stand around and watch zombies run or walk towards them. Why all characters do this in this movie I don't know. I guess the director didn't really know what he was doing.

For so long we only have English zombies and Chinese zombies, then this year we got our first Korean zombies and now we welcome the first appearance of Japanese zombies. The zombie apocalypse genre is excessively tried and tired. How Japan, having some of the most crowded cities in the world, hasn't gotten into the act is one mystifying mystery. Shinsuke Sato, adapting Kengo Hanazawa's massively popular manga of the same name, understands the source material and totally transpose the addictive page-turning frenzy onto the cinematic medium. This is one crackerjack of a movie and if you have to force me to make decision, I would choose to watch this again over Train to Busan.

Hideo Suzuki (Yô Ôizumi) is a manga artist still twiddling along long after his sell-by date. He lives with his wife who is tired of waiting for Hideo to score his first success at serialising his comic. Every night Hideo draws and stares at his self-made post-it notes of encouragement - "you rock" and "one day a street will be named after you". If that doesn't work, he will take out his shotgun for skeet shooting and pose in front of a full length mirror. He only stops short at muttering the infamous words of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. One night he is thrown out of the house and all hell breaks loose. Together with the quintessential school girl (Kasumi Arimura) in short skirt, they go on to Mt Fuji for safety because they read in one urgent posting on the internet - zombies can't survive in high altitude.

The moment the zombie epidemic starts, I am a Hero careens into one giddy blood- soaked adrenaline rush. The film doesn't push the zombie genre to new directions, but it takes the established tropes and gives it a fresh twist and out comes one sicko and satisfying monster-tainer. I love the opening establishing and main character building scenes - Hideo represents the typical male gazer, your favourite type of loser. His name notwithstanding, you know you will be watching an extreme character arc of a loser becoming a hero. How many times have you seen that in a zombie film? He is a pacifist in a cutthroat world of running zombies. How long can he stay that way in this world? Pretty long, I have to say. When the heroic moment finally arrives, and he steps up to the plate, a big smile was plastered on my face.

How else did the movie remixed the zombie tropes? Imagine zombies moving and gesticulating in Sadako (Ringu) style; zombies retaining one memory from their lifetime or a muscle memory that they repeat and repeat till someone blasts their brains out. I had a good laugh at one zombie muttering he is a taxi-driver who has won many awards for never being involved in any accident and for being the most courteous driver, and of course you know what happens next. The dark humour is just awesome. Some of them skewers the working class system and I couldn't stop myself from laughing at the absurdity of it all. In fact, I think I was the first one who started giggling. Then my wife caught the cue. Before long the audience in my section was laughing away. The dark humour was spot-on perfect and it works because you recognise the plight of the working class.

The visual effects are stellar - blackening veins, clouding eye-balls and gristly cracking noises. They move and contort like crabs and insects, which gave me the creeps. This is zombies J-pop horror style. The mass chaos on the city streets is superbly shot. Imagine people coming from all directions and you are not sure who are the infected until they get nearer. One particular action sequence on a highway is an adrenaline rush.

The middle act slows down a fair bit as Hideo and the girl reach a duty free mall at the foot of Mt Fuji. I am guessing that some of you who are true zombie aficionados would at this point cry "George Romero's Dawn of the Dead" - my respect to you if you did. But watch how the film puts a Lord of the Flies twist to it and this act comes up smelling like roses. I also love how Hideo's gun serves as a metaphor of his evolvement from zero to hero.

The film's narrative may feel familiar and a little long, but it is still one helluva inventive monster ride and Hideo is a wonderfully drawn character that will slowly but surely capture your imagination. The movie shamelessly sets itself up for a sequel but I can tell you I am so looking forward to another gore fest.

I saw this movie at the Stockholm International Filmfest. today and I really enjoyed it.

If I had to sum it up in a brief sentence i'd say it's as if the guy who wrote the "The Walking Dead" comic had written a Shaun of the Dead comic, and they made a movie out of that (I haven't read the manga this film is based on, but I assume that's more or less what it is).

It looks pretty expensive and has good effects and action, it's very well directed and acted, making the aesthetic of the film really paint its own manga-inspired universe.

The parts I didn't like is whenever it attempts to do somewhat serious drama, when it does it just seems entirely tone-deaf and alien. I'd give this movie a 3/5 and if they skipped the 20% of attempted drama and replace it with more over-the-top zombie comedy/action it'd be a 4/5.

I'd recommend this movie to most people and for zombie/nerd culture fans it's a must-see and likely a cult classic.