Yayyyy! The spirit of campy Japanese cinema is vested in “Big Man Japan“!

Hot on the heels of “Monster X Strikes Back,” “Big Man Japan” also pays tribute to the impossible monsters and heroes of the 1960s and ’70s.

Meet Big Dai Sato, or Big Man Japan. A documentary film crew is following Japan’s last mutant monster fighter, and he looks like a regular guy–until you hook his nipples to power cables and juice him up!

Then he’s as big as a skyscraper, defending Japan from a quirky arrangement of ever dwindling monster attacks.

The documentary filmmaking style is reminiscent of “Man Bites Dog.” It’s also just as funny in its own right. Big Man Japan is depressed and middle aged. He’s divorced and rarely sees his 8-year-old daughter, who he’d like to train to be a monster fighter. Six generations of his family have coupled to a power source to fight off villainous monsters. His ex is a total stick in the mud and won’t let him do it. She explains it: “I can’t give my child love and give her electricity, too.”

That’s just the start of the big man’s troubles. The TV show chronicling his fights has abysmal ratings, and he’s been relegated to 2 a.m. programming. The people of Japan mostly hate him because he takes up so much electricity and destroys so much of what he is supposed to defend. Tall buildings and infrastructure crumble when an attacking monster must be defeated.

What he finds most humiliating is how his agent–yes, he has an agent–must sell advertising space on his juiced-up body to help make ends meet.

My favorite scenes are with his enemies. The monsters are a screaming riot–a cross between the works of Ray Harryhausen, Jim Henson and Steven Spielberg…but mostly Harryhausen and the creators of so many rubber-suited Japanese monsters. I love most all of the monsters. There’s the Strangling Monster with the bad combover. There’s the Stink Monsters who Big Man Japan can’t stop from having sex on TV during one of his confrontations. And then there’s his nemesis monster, Red Monster. Red routinely kicks his butt and sends him home running and screaming.

The best monster is the Crazy Eye Monster. It has scrawny arms and legs, no head and a giant eye protruding from its groin. Crazy Eye Monster’s eye can extend and shrink at will. Hmmm. It is also the monster’s only weapon. Given the way this monster performs, I have no doubt that something got lost in the translation and that Crazy Eye Monster really means One-eyed Monster in American slang. Revel in it as he twirls and throws his tool of destruction at Big Man Japan. I thought I was going to pee in my pants laughing so hard at their fight scene.

The laughs don’t stop there. I also loved the FX of Dai Sato being electrocuted into Big Man Japan. The way his inflatable body grows is hysterical, and the film makers even worked out a way for the big guy to grow into Dai Sato’s oversized purple undies.

Big Man’s father Big Man Japan #5 died from over electrocuting himself when Dai Sato was a child. His grandfather Big Man Japan #4 raised him, and #4 was the most popular Big Man Japan ever! Now #4 is senile, living in a nursing home. Despite his dementia, he still wants to zap himself to full glory and defend Japan. At the low point of #6’s career, #4 zaps himself and escapes the nursing home to run amok in Tokyo as only an 80-year-old Alzheimer’s addled mutant can. Yeah, yeah. I know that shouldn’t be funny, but that knowledge didn’t stop me from laughing. With the press calling for his head for letting Granddad run amok, #6 merely responds: “Every family has its problems.”

The comedy is sick (both cool and gross at times)! It ranges from dry and sophisticated to slapstick goofy. The FX are a part of that and a lovingly mocking homage to the genre.

The ending is totally non sequitur but very fitting. If you expect something that makes sense at this point you ought to have your head examined.

The whole movie is a labor of love. It really shows. You need to see this movie!