Dainipponjin

Dir. Hitoshi Matsumoto. Japan, 2007.
With similar credentials to those Takeshi Kitano had before he made movies, but determined to take a different approach for his debut, Hitoshi Matsumoto looks set to establish a reputation as a quirky, bizarre type of humourist. His first film should qualify with equal ease for afternoon kiddie shows or midnight movie slots. Posing as a kind of mockumentary on the life of a super-hero, Matsumoto, who wrote, directed and plays the lead, pokes fun at the media and its fickle fashions.

The film will inevitably divide audiences into those who will find its humour side-splittingly funny, those who will appreciate the subtler dimensions of his irony and those who will have no interest. Matsumoto's film, as far as it is from being perfect, should engage domestic audiences who can appreciate references and allusions that are not always evident to foreign eyes. But it also deserves attention as an oddity in its own right. Commercially, beyond specialized theatre exposure, its best chances are for very late TV slots, just as the film itself slyly implies.

For the first 15 minutes, it looks as if this is another TV interview whose subject has a spurious claim to fame. The interviewee, Daisato, is a long haired, forty-something man who looks only slightly better than a hobo. He lives in a rundown neighbourhood covered with graffiti, and talks in a halting voice when answering questions about his marital problems, the daughter he does not see enough, the stray cat that visits him, and the poor salary and minimal side benefits of his governmental job.

Then, once he gets a phone call from the main office, the Department for Baddies Prevention, the true nature of the man is revealed. He is the last in a line of super heroes, called to duty every time a super-sized enemy of Godzilla-like dimensions (but not ferocity) threatens the peaceful population of Japan. In such instances, he goes to a power station, is plugged into the electricity to tank up energy, and blows himself up to the size of Michael Powell's genie in The Thief of Baghdad, after which he goes out to do battle with the baddie of the moment. Once he has accomplished his duty, he downsizes until the next time he is called.

The CGI-fashioned encounters are surprisingly good natured, and there is a distinct hint that the heroes and baddies are all performing in a perpetual reality show. Daisato, for instance, has his own agent who gets him sponsors and makes sure to decorate his inflated body with the logos of the respective companies. As the ratings of his TV performances have dropped lately, and he is never on before 2 am, business is not booming.

The tongue in cheek style of the pseudo-documentary footage, combined with the computer generated world-saving fictional battles, whose clumsier edge is most likely intentional, is initially entertaining, but once it starts repeating itself the charm begins to wear off.

The film gets seriously out of breath by the final sequence, when America sends her super-heroes to save Japan and later, as the final credits roll off the screen, run a seminar on the appropriate conduct of living myths when performing live.

Matsumoto's hesitantly dishevelled Daisato, just a working stiff with an unusual kind of job, is finely tuned and holds most of the film together.

Incidentally, the meaning of the title is 'The Great Japanese'.

Production companies
Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. (Jap)

International sales
Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. (Jap)

Executive producers
Isao Yoshino
Hiroshi Osaki

Producers
Akihiko Okamoto

Screenplay
Hitoshi Matsumoto
Mitsuyoshi Takasu

Cinematography
Hideo Yamamoto

Editor
Hisaya Shiraiwa

Production design
Yuji Hayashida
Etsuko Aikou

Music
Towa Tei

Main cast
Hitoshi Matsumoto
Riki Takeuchi
Ryonosuke Kamiki
Itsuji Itao