Two more months and it will finally be here! What am I going on about? That weird Japanese comedy called Big Man Japan (Dai-Nipponjin). Released in its home country in 2007, it's taken its own sweet time getting to foreign shores.  I mean the DVD of course. The movie might have been shown at various film festivals but I was quite unaware of this movie until a few months ago. Well, the DVD should be out on July 28th 2009 and it is definitely something to watch out for.

From what I have seen and read, Big Man Japan is a fun movie which also boasts bits of fantasy elements. But it is the unconventional story that really got my attention. Imagine this -  there is a super-hero of sorts in the movie. He valiantly defends Tokyo from unscrupulous villains. This ranges from weird gargantuan beings to huge sea creatures. In case you are wondering how he does all this, the man transforms into a giant of a man for battle purposes. 

None of that is too weird, you say? In fact, that sounds like Hancock except somewhat more ordinary, you say? I'm glad the Hancock reference was thrown in, albeit not so subtly by yours truly, because there seems to be a common theme here. Superhero guy (Dai Nipponjin) is not too happy about his circumstances. Times are tough, money is hard to come by and smashing up monsters just don't seem to pay the bills. So guess what? He agrees to this reality TV-style coverage of his battles. You'd think that would work out well. On the contrary, it appears that Dai Nipponjin has the weirdest arguments with his enemies.

What's to like about the movie? Well, the social commentary was quite interesting - the references to over-hyped commercialism, voyeuristic television themes and of course, annoyances at work. Add to this the quirky Japanese humor and it seems like we have a winner. Well, I certainly have high hopes for this one.