Big Man Japan (2007)

Big Man Japan (2007)
Starring: Hitoshi Matsumoto, Riki Takeuchi, Ua, Ryûnosuke Kamiki, Haruka Unabara, Tomoji Hasegawa
Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto

Interesting mockumentary/satire on both Japanese culture and Tokusatsu films from comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto (he wrote 594 episodes of the series "Gaki no Tsukai", which ran for about 34 years). The film follows a never-seen documentarian (Tomoji Hasegawa) who follows a seemingly boring man around asking him all sorts of questions. The subject of the filming is Masaru Daisato (Matsumoto himself), who as it turns out, has a monstrous alter-ego: Big Man Japan.

Big Man Japan is the title given to certain people in Japan who have the ability to grow to giant sizes when exposed to electricity in order to fight giant monsters, which have been terrorizing Japan for at least six generations. Daisato's invalid grandfather (Taichi Yazaki) represented the peak of the popularity of the Big Men, but things are different now. The Japanese people are no longer wowed by the monster-fighting antics of the Big Man and tend to see him as a nuisance rather than a hero. And since Daisato's identity is widespread, he has to deal with graffiti on his house, dirty looks and staring, and falling TV ratings ("The weather report is more popular than your fights," the interviewer observes at one point). And a series of scandals just seem to make the Big Man's popularity even worse, even though it's him who's fighting the monsters, not the people.

The first part of this film is dry. Very, very dry. So understated, in fact, that I almost fell asleep watching it. It picks up a little and the monster sequences--done through an unconvincing-but-endearing form of motion capture--become more frequent. I'm sure there are lots of commentary on Japanese society amidst all of this, although as a gaijin, it is not all that apparent. Perhaps it is a comment on the declining popularity of tokusatsu as Japan's dismal birth rate means that there are less and less kids to consume the product. Perhaps it is a comment on Japan's bully culture, in which anyone related to someone unpopular is expected to be mistreated by everyone else. Perhaps it is a comment on how traditional stars--kabuki, sumo, etc--are losing popularity as demographics, culture, etc. shifts.

The film switches gears in the last 15 minutes, when it inexplicably becomes an outright parody of traditional tokusatsu shows, especially Ultraman. Even the special effects switch over from modern CGI and mo-cap to miniatures and suits, with the low quality that most Westerners assume that all tokusatsu and Godzilla movies have. And even then, there is some commentary on America in this sequence, but I'm not really sure what it is supposed to be. I think Japanese people--or people who have lived in Japan for an extended period of time--will get Big Man Japan more than people who simply casually "visit" the country when they need to scratch their kaiju itch.

Mechanical Violator Hakaider (1995)

Mechanical Violator Hakaider (1995)

Starring: Jiro Okamoto, Yuji Kishimoto, Toshiyuki Kikuchi, Mai Hosho
Director: Keita Amemiya

So, in the early 1970s, one of the popular Tokusatsu series in the midst of more than a dozen was Android Kikaider, about a half-blue, half-red robot who fights the forces of evil. One of the supporting characters was a black-clad robot named Hakaider, who seemed to jump back and forth between antagonist and uncomfortable ally. Director-artist-FX man Keita Amemiya, best known these days for his "Garo" series, was on a roll in the 1990s, starting with Zeiram. Right before he made that film's sequel, he made this movie, sort of a retelling of the Hakaider story.

A group of treasure hunters are snooping around a series of underground tunnels looking for hidden treasure, as per the local urban legends. They eventually find a secret vault, which they blow up. Instead of treasure, however, they find a human-faced cyborg (Jiro Okamoto), whom they immediately recognize as Hakaider. The treasure hunters try to destroy it, but Hakaider comes back online, takes on his tokusatsu persona, and straight-up murders them all. He then hops on a motorcycle (with his trusty shotgun in tow) and heads over to Jesus Town.

What is Jesus Town? Well, think of it as the Japanese tokusatsu version of the alternate future of the Flanders Dystopia from "Time and Punishment" from the Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror V. A white-clad angelic being named Ryo (Yuji Kishimoto) runs a "peaceful" city through fear and lobotomies (well, they are microchips inserted into brains, but the effect is the same). His main enforcer is a winged, white-painted robot named Michael (Toshiyuki Kikuchi). Well, Hakaider arrives in town and immediately starts picking fights with Ryo's security force while falling in with a group of rebels, including a woman named Kaoru (Mai Hosho), who has been dreaming of a black knight saving her from a demon in angel's clothing. FORESHADOWING!!!

The plot is pretty simple: Hakaider shows up, doesn't talk a lot, and just gets into an escalating series of gunfights (and some fist fights) until he finally has to throw down with Ryo and Michael (get it? Michael the Archangel?). There is some interesting religious iconography and I liked the visuals of Kaoru's dreams. There is a brief moment when the rebels are talking about what they'd do if they managed to overthrow Ryo, to which Hakaider points out that if they did the things they fantasize about, they would ultimately be no better than the current leaders--a common theme of left-wing revolutions overthrowing right-wing dictatorships. I didn't understand the entire story--the death of one character is handled in a rather odd manner--and some of the mechanics of Ryo's armed guard weren't explained well.

But there is a lot of gunplay and people who don't need John Woo (or John Wick) stylistics do enjoy constant machine gun fire should enjoy this. There is a robot battle at the end, followed by a typical Keita Amemiya climatic monster escalation (see his Zeiram movies) which is realized almost completely in stop motion animation. AWESOME! 

2 Capsule Reviews - Taiwanese oddities

Turbo Dragon (1985)
aka Dragon Gate Fighter; Dragon Rascal -
Director: Ke Cheng-Lin

This obscure oddity is essentially a Brucesploitation comedy made a couple of years after both Dragon Lee and Bruce Le had moved away from the sub-genre. It doesn't really have an actual plot, and about every 20 minutes or so, it becomes a completely different movie in terms of stuff that goes on onscreen.

Lung Tse (Pan Rui-Li, of Kung Fu Emperor and To Catch a Thief) is a talented martial artist who has a hard time landing and keeping a job. When we meet him, he's working as a priest (!?) who officiates weddings. He loses his job after he beats up the groom in order for the bride to run off with her paramour, some borderline idiot fellow. His next job is to work as a janitor for a fat rich guy (Lin Kuang-Chin, of Tiger Love and Deadly Strike). On his first day of work, he rescues the guy's daughter (Fu Chuen, of Chaste Virgin and Madam Yu Ching) from kidnappers. The boss gives him a job as the stuntman on a cheap Brucesploitation flick (with Wei Ping-Ao in the cast, no less). Lung Tse then gets a normal job at the guy's company doing...construction(?)...different things, while he cavorts around with the daughter.

Just as Lung Tse and the daughter are going to elope, the boss shows up with a present for him: a trip to Thailand...because...uh...reasons? I guess it was to give the boss time to think before Lung could run off with his daughter. Anyway, Lung Tse's martial brother is having some problems with the local crime boss, who is pressuring him to take the fall for gambling reasons. After refusing twice to intentionally lose, the brother is beaten up by the gang boss's secret weapon fighter (Chen Te-Wei, of The Idiot Swordsman) in retaliation and the guy, his promotor/girlfriend (Chang Hoi-Lun), her flunkies, and Lung Tse are forced to flee into the jungle and go into hiding. After an interlude involving cannibals, Lung Tse takes on the boss's hyper-muscular fighter as a means of shoring up accounts.

As I said, Turbo Dragon doesn't really have a story. It doesn't really have an ending, either. Stuff just happens until the main opponent is defeated, at which point the film simply just stops. And the movie just jumps around from genre to another: it stars as a modern action-comedy; becomes a send-up of Brucesploitation; a sappy romance; then something about corrupt ring fights; then jungle adventure; and the last reel becomes borderline science fiction as it's revealed that the Thai crime boss has a supercomputer that he uses to train his secret weapon fighter, not too unlike the apparatus that Eric Roberts uses in DOA: Dead or Alive--the subtitles disappear when they're explaining device, but it looks like it analyzes the opponents moves and it's implied that it downloads information into the person's brain during the fight...I think.

There is some fighting here and there. Pan Rui-Li is in Bruce Lee imitator mode in his fights, although he's not as fast or crisp as the real thing. The fight on the movie set is basically a recreation of the earlier fights from Way of the Dragon (the entire movie looks like a remake of that film). The Muay Thai fights are played more or less realistically, as is the case of these films. There is a fight between Lung Tse and the top warrior of the cannibal tribe that involves them chained to each other--how do Stone Age tribes have metal chains--and wailing on each with iron axes and rattan shields. And the final fight feels like a combination of traditional shapes and more modern sensibilities. The fighting on the whole is okay, but the movie is so nonsensical that it's hard to enjoy.

Evil Hits Evil (1983/1985) 
Director: Nam Ki-nam, Lucifer Lai

At first I wondered if this was a cash-in on Mr. Vampire from that same year, but the release date is early enough in the year that I think it was more of a belated cash-in on the likes of Kung Fu Zombie or Encounter of the Spooky Kind. It is also not very good, with its notability mainly being that it was Doris Lung's last role (ignoring cut n' splice films that reused footage from her movies).

The movie opens with the slaughter of Chen Fu (Kwon Yung-moon) and his family by a group of killers working for the evil Mr. Hung (Chan Sing). Mr. Hung is the richest man in the village and has no problem torturing and murdering anyone who displeases him, which was Chen Fu's downfall: Chen Fu was a groundskeeper at Mr. Hung's house and was guilty of ollygagging so he could listen to Hung's daughter (Doris Lung Jun-Ehr) playing the lute. That barbarian.

Some months later, the ghost of Chen Fu possesses the body of Lee Yao (Alan Liu), a woodcutter in Mr. Hung's employ. Meanwhile, Mr. Hung starts getting haunted by ravens. And the local night watchman has visions of ghosts. And some random passerby gets in a fight with a pair of nunchaku-wielding numbskull bandits who take orders from their pet dog. And Mr. Hung randomly tortures a couple to death. And a Taoist Priest (Robert Tai), tries to exorcise the ghost from Lee Yao. And when that doesn't work, they have a sorcerer's battle. And Lee Yao starts killing off the killers who murdered Chen Fu.

If you look at that last paragraph, you'll notice that it feels a little random. That is exactly how this movie feels: random. It never feels like it settles on a main character or plot line. It just jumps back and forth between different characters until the climax. Heck, the film kills off some of the main characters right before the climax, one of whom I thought was the viewpoint character. I thought Robert Tai's Taoist priest was going to be important, but he dies about halfway through and is replaced with some random female Exorcist and a pair of charlatan priests whom the film spends way too much time with. And I still don't know what was up with the passerby and the bandits: he disappears from the narrative, only to show up as a ghost at the end.

There is nothing to really be gained from it. The action choreography was supplied by Peng Gang of Shaolin vs. Lama fame, but this is definitely his weakest work. Kwon Yung-moon throws a few kicks here and there, including a scene where he kicks a monk's head off. But the rest of the fighting is not lit very well (typical Taiwanese movie problem) and just not very interesting. And most of the climax is Doris Lung getting ghost raped, The Entity style. That is NOT a fitting end to the career of one of the major kung fu divas.