![\"bigmanjapan_1sh\"](\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/bigmanjapan_1sh.jpg\" "\\"bigmanjapan_1sh\\"")
<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nDir: Hitoshi Matsumoto<\/strong><\/p>\n [aka Dai-Nipponjin<\/strong>]<\/p>\n Even straight-down-the-line daikaiju eiga<\/em>, or Japanese giant monster films, are imaginatively left-field \u2013 but they don\u2019t get much weirder than this.<\/p>\n In Big Man Japan<\/em> an unseen interviewer follows the mundane day-to-day life of Masaru Daisatou (played with deadpan seriousness by Hitoshi Matsumoto). Masuru wanders the streets, philosophises drily on life, society and his failed relationships — and waits for something to happen. The thing is, Masuro is actually Dai-Nipponjin \u2013 Big Man Japan \u2013 the last in a line of giant superheroes. Whenever the weirdly monstrous Baddies turn up, Masuru is taken to a government installation and there transforms, thanks to electrical current injected through his nipples, into a Godzilla-sized humanoid with electro-shocked hair, huge purple underpants and a big stick.<\/p>\n Once, heroes mattered. These days, however, Masuru\u2019s agent struggles to get decent coverage of his fights, as the populace has long ago lost interest.<\/p>\n Big Man Japan<\/em> has a sense of humour both outrageous and very dry, and sports excellent giant-monster SFX — though the whole thing becomes (deliberately) a bad episode of an archetypal 1970s tokusatsu<\/em> TV show as Masuru\u2019s \u201creal\u201d world is overtaken by cheap sets, poor SFX and a family of garishly costumed and sadistic mega-heroes.<\/p>\n A wonderful cocktail of poignancy and absurdist humour, mixed together with huge dollops of that insane Japanese imagination you either love or just don\u2019t get.<\/p>\n Below is the US trailer:<\/p>\n \n