I Am a Hero

The insanely brutal zombie flick from Japan takes home the award for best zombie film of the year! I am Hero is more or less a competition to the Korean Train to Busan and although I didn't like the trailer much, it may have won with me. At the beginning I couldn't find much to like about it, my attention span only increased somewhere around the middle, where the last survivors were dwelling on the roof. I liked that it worked similarly to a post-apocalyptic flick, with proper anarchy, leaders to be deposed and replaced, fighting for supplies and groups against each other despite the fact that there are a bunch of zombies below. As far as the zombies go, I've perhaps never seen better looks and behaviour in my entire career. The best thing is that the zombies can talk and have retained their traits from their previous life (a zombie athlete can do some serious mischief like that), this makes each zombie different and differently dangerous, too, so you don't know what to expect. and I thought that was genius, I'm surprised no one had come up with this before. The make-up are excellent, at times nauseatingly disfigured, and the visuals are top notch by Japanese standards. The best thing for me is the high portion of very high quality gore, the 15 minute finale with at least 100 headshots is a carnage that would put even Macabre and Evil Dead together to shame. At the end there was just a horde of dead bodies lying there and I just appreciate that far more than the story! The only downside perhaps is the main character, who is a looser and a dunce throughout the film, but thankfully he saved the day in the finale. Awesome. Story 7/10, Atmosphere 8/10, Gore 10/10, Visuals 9/10, Action 8/10, Suspense 7/10, Humor 3/10. Entertainment 8/10, Scares 5/10. 85%. (2016.11.22)

I Am a Hero is the wet dream of every overaged otaku. What more could you want from life, when you’re a self-absorbed, bitter loser and the fact that your thirtieth birth was celebrated long ago indicates that your life is as good as it’s going to get and that, compared to your original dreams, the recognition, fame and higher salary that you crave are never coming? In that case, the global apocalypse is notthe end of the world, but a welcome restart, where all of your annoying acquaintances and co-workers are the first to bite the dust, and your previously eccentric and misunderstood hobby leads to good. In order for the illusion to be perfect, there must also be a trophy in the form of a schoolgirl who is concurrently an object of desire, a fragile beauty in need of protection and a super-lethal weapon all in one. Whereas post-apocalyptic fiction previously served to update mythical narratives and outdated genre categories such as westerns, in I Am a Hero it becomes a means of venting the bitterness of supposedly superior nerds and their frustrationwith everyday reality, which is in sharp contrast to the fantasy stories that they lap up. The fact that some foreign commentators on Japanese cinema consider this exercise in futility to be one of the better films of last year only goes to show the miserable place in which the previously renowned film production now finds itself. (2016.06.26)

For the first time in a long time, a zombie series that I really enjoyed. The film follows the rules, so the viewer gets a chance to get to know the main character, who is actually quite a buffoon; though he has lots of ideas about how to change that, the deed is done. Then the contagion breaks out and the general chaos was great! Well just imagine if something like that happened in the city, suddenly broke out. Awesome. Then the movie goes into a sort of mini road movie where Hideo grows on us, starving but not constantly dragging his girlfriend along. And then more people show up on the scene. The movie doesn't have as much space to show how things work in a gated and threatened community, I suppose there was more of that in the manga, but we still get to see how fickle it is and how easily it gets "passed". Oh, and then there's that moment where the hero hesitates and then the film ends with an amazing "hunt". Perfect. I enjoyed the film immensely and I suspect I will watch it again sometime. Actually, the best thing about Hideo is how he's the same for the entire movie – there's basically an extreme situation, but he still pays attention to the rules and laws. A man like that is more precious than gold in an extreme situation. He's so ordinary it's great. A strong 4 stars. (2016.12.13)