Dai Nipponjin (Big Man Japan) (2007)

[HungFist]

I see there’s an Eastern Eye dvd coming in December, so I thought of starting a thread. I saw the film a little over a year ago, not really a masterpiece or anything close, but it’s quite funny and definitely original. Might consider buying the dvd.

My 2010 mini-review:

Dai nipponjin (Japan, 2007) – 3.5/5
Hitoshi Matsumoto’s documentary film is a must see for anyone interested in modern Japan. Best viewed with no information about the content. Stop reading! If you are, however, boneheaded enough to still be reading, then at least do your friend a favor and trick him into believing this fake doc is the real deal. Symbol-director Hitoshi Matsumoto plays an everyday loser – divorced, poor, unpopular – whose inherited destiny is to protect Japan from a various bunch of Godzilla baddies. He is Dai nipponjin, the great Japanese, although nowadays more commonly mocked as the great dumbass. Overlong but original and nicely shot, the film also goes very political during the last 15 minutes.

My original 2007 mini-review

Dai Nipponjin – 3/5
Hitoshi Matsumoto’s directorial debut can’t be blamed for lack of originality. Matsumoto himself stars as Daisato, a big Japanese man (Dai Nipponjin) of extraordinary skills. Whenever Japan is in danger he will transform into a 80-foot superhero to fight all sorts of Godzillas and Gameras. Unfortunately the times are not good and Daisato has lost his popularity. TV reports of his fights have been pushed past midnight and people mock him as ’big idiot’.

Matsumoto’s brightest idea has been not to deliver a laugh-out-loud comedy but sort of kaiju/super hero mockumentary where a documentary crew follows Daisato’s everyday life and interviews him, his agent, family members and bystanders. The pace is very slow, the humour mostly low key and the style, well, documentaristic. But it’s this contradiction between the content and execution that makes the film so hilarious. The ending on the other had goes to such limits you probably won’t believe your eyes

There’s was a R1 coming, too, but I can no longer find it. I’m sure it was up for pre-order at some point.


- http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/97666 ... e%207.html

Those pics give you some idea what to expect, but they are too clean and polished, compared to the film's more documentaristic look.

Trailer on the official site:
http://www.dainipponjin.com/index.html

[HungFist]

2 Disc HK release coming tomorrow

http://www.dddhouse.com/v3/product_deta ... uctID=8995
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.548 ... etails.htm

[diceman]

Watched in a theater and loved every minute about it.
The humor is more of the quiet, tragicomical sort, nothing to make you laugh out loud, but somehow it always brought a smile to my face. Even the awkward animation-style during the Kaiju-scenes gets a sound justification within the very last scene, which literally sparkles from pure ingeniousness and has a very subversive message to tell. One of the most entertaining mockumentaries I've ever seen (not that I've watched a lot of them; in fact I think "Dainipponjin" is the first. )

[HungFist]

A few screencaps from the HK DVD













There's a small subtitle error. In the English subs 4th generation is always missing the number, so it just states "the th generation"

[grim_tales]

This is out on UK DVD too I'm sure.

[thelostdragon]

3.5/5
It starts out brilliantly, but towards the film's ending it kinda slows down. I know it would be kinda unnecessary to mention that there are WTF-moments in this films, but WTF was the ending all about? I'm fine with the 'Mazinger Z'-homage, but what was that talk about they had at that table during the credits, lol?

[HungFist]

Well, the ending is rather political, with North-Korea attacking (the red baddie), USA defending (the superhero family), and Japan hiding behind the building (Dai Nipponjin) as usual...

Matsumoto's Symbol (2009) is even better than Dai Nipponjin:
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... f=1&t=5769

His new film, Saya Zamurai (2011), is in theaters right now. Some pre-screenings apparently got him billed as "The Next Kitano":
http://jasongray.blogspot.com/2011/04/j ... toshi.html

[thelostdragon]

I kinda dig 'Saya Zamurai', hadn't heard of 'Symbol', though. It looks like real fun. Is it also shot in that fake documentary stlye?

[HungFist]

hadn't heard of 'Symbol', though. It looks like real fun. Is it also shot in that fake documentary stlye?

It's not fake documentary style, but it's very original. Without spoiling anything except the first 5 minutes, the film has two main characters. One is a Japanese man (Matsumoto) waking up in a big white room with no exit. The other one is a Mexican wrestler preparing for his match (shot in Mexico, and spoken in Spanish)...

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any other dvds releases than the R2J (which I own).

[thelostdragon]

hadn't heard of 'Symbol', though. It looks like real fun. Is it also shot in that fake documentary stlye?

It's not fake documentary style, but it's very original. Without spoiling anything except the first 5 minutes, the film has two main characters. One is a Japanese man (Matsumoto) waking up in a big white room with no exit. The other one is a Mexican wrestler preparing for his match (shot in Mexico, and spoken in Spanish)...

Oh yes, I've heard of that. It was playing in theatres over here and IIRC Rapid Eye Movies has the distribution rights for German speaking territories, so a DVD/Blu Ray shouldn't be far away. Their DVD release of 'Dainipponjin' is ace IMO.