By Tristan Bishop
I’m pretty sure I’ve been guilty of claiming that the zombie film is dead myself on more than one occasion; but, much like their featured antagonists, they just don’t stay dead. Of course, the problem with this is they tend to not be so fresh after a while. I Am A Hero is a Japanese take on the zombie comedy. But this is no Sushi Typhoon-inspired low-budget gorefest; this is an accomplished, even mainstream film, which, much like last year’s Deadman Inferno/ Z Island, somehow manages to feel like an original take on the usual zombie tropes.
The hero of the title is Hideo Suzuki (played by famous Japanese comedian Yo Oizumi), a 35 year old Manga artist who, despite winning a ‘newcomer of the year’ award at the start of his career, has found himself going nowhere. He is alternately ignored and ridiculed at work, and his girlfriend is so fed up with his lack of success that she kicks him out. Taking his most prized possession, a skeet–shooting shotgun with him, he heads back to the only place he knows. The office. However, on arrival he discovers that he is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and his co-workers have already been infected. Whilst trying to escape Tokyo he ends up partnering with a schoolgirl named Hiromi, who might be harbouring a secret or two, and, whilst on route to Mount Fuji (apparently the so-called ZQN virus does not thrive at high altitudes) they end up at a shopping mall where a bunch of survivors have holed up. The problem is that they are low on supplies and all the foodstuffs in the mall are contained in a basement overrun by the living dead. Will Hideo be able to find the inner courage to assume the mantle of ‘hero’?
The closest comparison to I Am A Hero is probably Shaun Of The Dead, with its loser protagonist, but I Am A Hero feels like a more expansive film. The humour, like SOTD, is crucially based around character, something far too many horror comedies ignore in favour of gore gags. There are plenty of those here too, of course, but it’s the human element this time that involves us, and Oizumi deserves a huge chunk of the credit for this, displaying a sheer affability that ensures the entire audience is rooting for him. One of the running jokes throughout the film is that he is constantly carrying his shotgun, but will not use it due to not wanting to break the law – an amusing spin on Japan’s firearms laws, which are some of the strictest in the world, so rather than the trigger-happy antics of the Walking Dead cast, the characters here are forced to run from the somewhat speedy zombies, or defend themselves in other ways.
There’s a big debt to Romero here, of course, with much of the action set in a shopping mall. But the film takes old George’s ‘they are us’ philosophy a little further: here the zombies are stuck into patterns of behaviour that they exhibited just before they died, be it shopping or, in the case of one particularly dangerous (albeit very amusing) zom, the high jump.
It’s great to see a new Japanese film that looks so expensive too, given that so many recent genre movies from the country play like glorified video projects – in fact, the film has had heavy Korean backing, which may have something to do with it. But fear not, I Am A Hero is very much a Japanese film at heart, with many subtle (and occasionally not-so-subtle) comments on Japanese society – for instance, one character rants about how no Japanese culture exports abroad except for Manga (hardcore gamers may disagree with this statement!). Although this is primarily amusing because, yes, I Am Hero is in fact based on a Manga.
In fact, the major flaw with the film can be traced to the Manga roots: when it ends, there are unanswered questions left hanging. However, it turns out that this is only an adaptation of the first half of the Manga run, so who knows, maybe a sequel will appear? I certainly hope so, as horror comedies with this much charm and wit are very rare beasts indeed.