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.

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

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.