I am hoping that DAINIPPONJIN takes the audience by surprise just as when I saw it in Cannes where the film was playing in the Director's Fortnight section of the Festival. One of the programmers, Jeremy Segay, told me it was perfect Midnight Madness fare, but you wouldn't guess it from the description in their programme book:

Dai Sato leads a dull, routine life, thus continuing a family tradition. He must keep the peace. But most people belittle his responsibilities. This is a film about human relations: Dai Sato's relations, with his agent, his ex-wife, his daughter, and a grandfather suffering from dementia.

Certainly sounds like a rolicking time!10 minutes into the film I was wondering why I was there. Sure, this was a deadpan black comedy similar to the work of Takeshi Kitano, but it was not delivering the kind of heart-pounding Midnight thrills I was looking for... until Daisato gets a call to do his job and the man transforms into a giant in purple underwear and beats the crap out of the wildest monsters ever to attack Japan! DAINIPPONJIN was just the kind of MM gem that I was looking for ? an outrageous debut that I think might be destined for cult cinema status. Here are reviews from the Cannes screenings over at Twitchfilm.net and Variety.

But back to the start of the night. The screening itself was delayed due to a large amount of hooplah from the Japanese media. You can see it for yourself with these two clips:

A friend told me the reason for the frenzy: That year in Cannes, the new film by Takeshi Kitano, KANTOKU BANZAI! aka GLORY TO THE FILMMAKER, was not selected in Cannes (but is selected this year in TIFF), but DAINIPPONJIN was. The director and star, Hitosi Matsumoto is a comedian on television, equally as pospular as Kitano. Since Kitano the director got his start the same way, was this the debut of a new Japanese star on the international film scene? So that leads to the question, just who is Matsumoto? Grady Hendrix over at Kaiju Shakedown tackles this subject:

Who is Hitoshi Matsumoto? He likes dogs but he doesn't like children. In 1996 he and Hamada held a press conference to announce that they were the biggest tax payers in the Japanese entertainment industry. He likes Tetris and billiards. And he's the director of the Japanese superhero mocumentary, DAINIPPONJIN which played Cannes and is going on to the Toronto International Film Festival in the Midnight Madness category. He's the closest thing Japan comes to a comic genius, the nearest equivalent to Stephen Chow. (click to read more)

After pushing a number of people to see the second screening in Cannes, Tim League (the owner of the Alamo Drafthouse who runs the Austin Fantastic Film Fest) started telling me about Matsumoto's comedy troupe Downtown and sent me a dvd with highlights from the show. I have put a few of them on this little MM youtube exclusive along with a sequence from DAINIPPONJIN. Later my sister, who lived in Japan for 3 years, told me that watching Matsumoto helped with her Japanaese!

And for one other bit of Matsumoto strangeness, check out the regular sketch character, Mr. Bator: