Last week I celebrated the bombing of Hiroshima by reviewing Godzilla. Well, “celebrated” seems like a pretty fuckin' morbid term for an event where thousands of men, women, children, and pets were atomized, slowly burned to death, or poisoned with incurable radiation diseases, so let's say “commemorated”. Even then, I wasn't trying to focus on the thousands of blah blah blah blah, but as a movie reviewer the event was a big deal because it introduced the world not only to the US's new “fuck 'em all, we're in charge of the world, damn it!” foreign policy, but because it gave movie-makers a whole new sub-genre: atomic monsters. As such, it was only fitting that biggest and most iconic of these new nuclear nightmares should be represented with a review for the ol' “Gorilla Whale” himself. Just as Hiroshima was the alpha of atomic warfare, so was Nagasaki its omega. The obliteration of Nagasaki was the last straw needed to break Japan's back over America's knee and put an end to the second Double W. That reminds me, we've only got 5 months until the point will be moot, so when is somebody finally getting off their ass to drop our pal Smilin' Joe Fission to put an end to that other global conflict: George W?

When coming up with a movie to represent the impact of the Nagasaki bombing on the history books, I looked far and wide and devoted hours of deep thought and intense research to the task... when I said to Hell with it and grabbed a DVD my bootlegging “digital media terrorist” pal had sent me the week before. Appropriately enough it was crafted in the land of the rising sun and its subject matter stems from the afterbirth of our buddy the a-bomb, so why the fuck not. So put your radioactive cat out, nuke some atomically treated popcorn, put on your size XXXXXXXXXXXL Huggies, and get ready for some awkward, listless monster wrasslin' with Big Man Japan.

Shot in the fake documentary style people like to call “mockumentary” (though I prefer “mock doc” myself), our movie follows the everyday life and exploits of a very unexceptional Japanese man that I'm going to call Big. Big lives a very solitary life in a squalid little home with a stray cat the closest thing to companionship. Insert pussy joke here. Aside from his subtle interest in things that grow large when they're needed (compact umbrellas, beans that grow large when submersed in water, probably his penis), Bigmeister's really not a very interesting specimen. He's estranged from his wife, he rarely gets to see his daughter, he makes just enough money to pay his rent, and his neighbors take a liking to defacing his house with graffiti and smashing out his windows with rocks. Not exactly ideal material for somebody to make a documentary about, right? Well, Biggie isn't just your everyday Joe Shmoe. He's the super-sized savior of Japan: Big Japanese Man!... or “The King of Pain” depending on who you're asking... but not “The King of Spain”, cuz that's Sting... or “The King of Suede”, cuz that's Weird Al...

Big's the latest (and likely last) in a lineage of super-powered giant sumo fighters tasked with fighting the nuclear beasties born of the original a-bomb drops! Born with a genetic mutation that causes him to grow to Ultraman proportions when supercharged with heavy wattage, The King's goes into battle with a frizzy 'fro, a body covered with tattoos, a purple sumo diaper, and a big stick for hittin' stuff. He also rents out his gut and lower back as ad space to make a few extra sponsor bucks, cuz even giant monster fighting juggernauts bend at the knee in the face of the power company. After each transformation, it takes him 3 days to shrink back to normal size. It seems to be psychological in nature though, because he only shrinks back to normal when no one's paying him any attention. Big's grandfather was the most loved of their family of heroes, complete with a harem of 50 concubines! In a depressing contrast of how complacent the people are and how little the country cares for their defender now, Biggie's concubine count comes in slightly lower... at an even ZERO. Jeez, you'd think with all the insane repressed sexual deviants in Japan that there'd be at least 20 or 30 chicks in leather school girl uniforms and ballgags in their mouths banging on his door! Instead, the TV show that televises his battles festers in a shitty time slot, ratings are sinking faster than Ted Kennedy's car in Poucha Pond, and with today's breed of monsters getting goofier by the day, Big Man's impact on his society is gravely in question. Wiping another booger on the hero's credit, Grandpa Big Man escapes his room at the old folks' home and goes on a senile rampage through Tokyo, acting like a little kid playing with toys. Man, if that's what Alzheimer's is like, I can't wait!

Unlike the other atomic protectors of the East, Big Man doesn't have a rogues gallery of impressive foes like a three-headed space dragon or a monster with a buzzsaw in its stomach, or an alien demon with a giant Ginsu knife for a face. Instead he spends much of the movie getting into half-hearted tussles with a freaky looking though ultimately laughable line-up of giant monsters ranging from a Michelin Man-ish monstrosity with a comb-over and a tendency to German Suplex the crap outta buildings (and our hero), to a giant mutant frog leg with the massive head of Japanese Elvis attached to it, to a pair of unsettling pink fleshy creatures who fart strange odors and look like flowery sex organs. He's embarrassed to fight 'em? I wouldn't touch that phallic sideshow even if I had flesh gloves made out of Jerry Falwell. Blegh.

Of course, while our hero's busting his ass to save the nation and doing the eternal balancing act across the economic high wire known as the poverty line, his agent seems to be living the sweet life with her shiny new car and ugly-but-expensive dogs. When a mysterious devil character with a giant head and tiny fists stomps a sushi hole in The King's ass and he's forced to retreat, somehow his TV show's ratings now have something in common with a protagonist in a William S. Burroughs novel: they shoot up! *rimshot* I get the feeling that Little Miss Agent might be part of a grander scheme to get people interested in her product client again by getting his ass kicked (and possibly his life endangered) by this new threat. Before we can go anywhere with this potential conspiracy though, the last 15 minutes or so degenerate into random utter-brain-exploding-insanity! I don't wanna spoil it for those who don't want it spoiled, but if you're curious, here's somebody's YouTube video. It's not translated, so unless you speak Japanese you won't get the full effect of the bizarre dialog that goes with it, but if you just wanna see some crazy shit to show the people at work, check that shit out. It's just Exhibit Q73 in the long list of evidence against the land of the rising sun in the case of “Japan Vs. Sanity”.

Unfortunately, way too much of BMJ feels like random, disjointed scenes and this big shot of Aylmer juice shot directed up our noses feels more like a last minute attempt to make the audience take notice than it does a scripted ending to the movie. The monster fights just happen with no actual build-up and lackluster results... well, with the exception of the bird monster thing that throws its eye-stalk penis thing at the big guy. That ends rather, uhm, “invasively”. The scene with Grandpa Big Man also grates on my nerves because even though it's a funny minute or two of watching a senile old giant being senile and old and gigantic, there's no mention of how he managed to go into huge mode (doesn't he need a big burst of electricity to do that?) nor are we told how he's eventually stopped. He does pop up months later in the movie's time line, but once again without any semblance of an explanation. In another scene, one of Big Man's monster opponents knocks over a building and squirts out what look like eggs into the foundation. What were in those slimy oval sacs? No fucking clue. After they were plopped out, we never heard from them again. I was waiting for some big reveal to tie it all together before the end creds, but no luck. Sadly, the fights are all the same: lackluster cgi sequences where Biggie tussles with a monster, ending either when he wins and the creature ascends to Kaiju Heaven (don't ask, I don't know), or the monster wins and Big Man runs away... or he passes out in a fart cloud unleashed by a meat flower. Either way, NOTHING GETS RESOLVED.

While we're on the subject, nobody bothers to explain why Biggie's neighbors treat him like shit either. Is it supposed to be a testament to the “kids these days have no respect” apathy and cruel-for-cruelty's sake mentality of today's youth? Or, is it just a way to make the hero seem especially pathetic so we'll either laugh at him or feel sorry for him? I'd put my donuts on the latter, especially since everything else in the movie is meant to show off the guy as an undignified loser who no one respects. Despite being the biggest, strongest man in the country, he can't even convince his ex-wife to let him put their daughter in the documentary without having her face blurred out and her voice muffled so no one will know he's her father. The only time he's happy is when he's with his daughter and the only time he's confident is when he's 20 stories tall. Try as I might, I can't help but sound like a movie critic cliché when I say that Big Man Japan has potential by the buckets, but doesn't seem to know what to do with it. It's a bunch of funny shit haphazardly thrown together with no real sense of structure or flow... not unlike one of my reviews!