Zebraman.

"A downtrodden schoolteacher, a disabled boy and a government agent suffering from an embarrassing itch: these are the unlikely heroes of Zebraman, Takashi Miike's bizarre detour from ultraviolence into family fare," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "Mr Miike fashions unexpectedly arresting images - the weird stillness of an ocean of emerald ooze, the surreal beauty of Zebraman's lacerated costume - but the movie heaves with possessed schoolchildren, aggressive eggplant and a pea-green baby."

Zebraman "has come to save our summer from bloated Hollywood product that takes itself but not its audience seriously," writes Aaron Hillis in the Voice.

"Like the great artisans who performed yeoman's work under the studio system, Miike can do anything and, more than that, does," writes Michael Joshua Rowin in the L Magazine. "We're not used to that anymore here in the States, where outside the purgatory of straight-to-video, directors seemingly unafraid of slumming trump up B-movie assignments into marquee-spangled events (I'm looking at you, RR and QT)." As for Zebraman, "Is it a condescending lark on a genre, or a near-egoless tribute to the gemlike perfection of the kid-friendly crowd-pleaser? Whatever it is, it's fun."

"Zebraman has all the semi-coherent genre blending you'd expect from Miike, who works too much and too fast but is nonetheless one of contemporary film's most original synthesizers," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "For any fan of Japanese pop culture, the clips from the alleged original series (Zebraman's theme song! His kicking and punching technique! His stylish guitar-strumming in his alternate existence as a beloved, joke-cracking schoolteacher!) are positively to die for."

Posted by dwhudson at August 16, 2007 2:36 PM