That special something beneath that special something Miike has.

upendra-1

Zebraman: yes, it's a superhero movie nipping at the heels of a glut of recent superhero movies. And yes, it conforms to every trope of the superhero movie genre: loser gets superpowers, triumphs over an unstoppably evil menace, gains love and admiration, etc. And yet, Zebraman has a quality which is more endearing than any other superhero movie of recent memory (even Tobey McGuire's Spiderman, God love him, doesn't elicit as much sympathy as Zebraman).

This may be due to Sho Aikawa's affably inept hero: even in grislier Miike films, Aikawa's quirky sputterings and perpetually buggy expression are hard not to like. But even more relevant to Zebraman's success is its director, Takashi Miike.

Of course Miike made his reputation as director of the most unbelievably violent films ever put to screen, but the truth is there are plenty of slasher flicks out there gorier and more depraved than even Ichi the Killer (hard to believe, right?). What makes Miike's work so enduring (and the rest dusty bargain-bin items) is something which underlies all the shooting and stabbing and torture: a palpable human thread which somehow pierces right to the heart. Miike's philosophy seems like that of a war-film director: humanity is more sharply noticeable when contrasted against inhumanity.

But in Zebraman, we have a new entity for Miike, or at least an entity he only occasionally trots out: a film which goes straight to the humanity in lieu of the usual bloodletting. What violence there is tends toward the comic, and rivals the worst in a PG-13 movie.

Needless to say, Ichi-junkies will find Zebraman too tame for words. The arterial-spurt crowd should stick with Fudoh or Gozu for their freaky horror fill. But for the crowd that found Ichi hard to stomach, give Zebraman a try: it's much more palatable.

On the negative side, the film does run overlong, and slows down considerably toward the end. But don't despair: Zebraman's ending is well worth the wait. Black and White Ecstacy!

score 8/10

upendra-1 15 June 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1103434/