Zebraman

Stripey!

One of the most twisted and innovative directors out there, Takashi Miike, serves up a variant of the generally detestable "if you believe in your dreams, they will come true" films that turns out to be damn entertaining.

The premise is straightforward: take a man who is a failure as an adult(he is unable to befriend or chastise the children he teaches) , a husband (his wife is cheating on him), and a father (his son is bullied at school, and his daughter is a teenage prostitute), give him a lifelong obsession with a superhero whose television show was scrapped after 7 episodes, mix in a wheelchair-bound kid who shares this same obsession, and pit these two against a horde of green-slime aliens bent on taking over the earth.

The failed teacher has made a Zebraman costume as homage to his childhood hero, and at night he dresses up in it and beats the stuffing out of... pillows. One night he ventures outdoors in costume, ostensibly to show his new wheeled friend his black-and-white finery, and encounters another nutcase wearing a crab-mask and wielding two pairs of scissors. Battle ensues. In the course of flailing about like a schoolgirl, the teacher is filled with the spirit of Zebraman, and thus begins his career as a costumed crimefighter.

Miike's rather jaded and unflinching humor crops up now and then, and the story takes a few odd and unexpected turns, making for an unconventional superhero-wannabe movie. It is well-worth the two-hour investment and, however predictable the rest of the film may be, no-one is going to be able to forsee the Zebraman finishing move.


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Zebraman (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Scene I'd watch on endless loop: "Zebranurse!"

Doubly-irreverant nickname I keep wanting to use: "Miike Mouse"