Zebraman.

Zebraman. This is a film by Takashi Miike, who specializes in drawn out horrory films. He brought us such gems as One Missed Call(the original), Audition, Ichi the Killer(which is uber-violent and worth seeing) and the Dead or Alive series(no not like the video games).

Zebraman was Miike's trip into the nonsensical. I think he was sick of making films that were too serious, and this is how he blew off some steam. The buildup of the movie features typical Japanese craziness, useless characters and heaps of slow moving social awkwardness.

Our hero is a terribly strange school teacher who dreams of being a character from an old, cancelled TV show called Zebraman. After trials and tribulations, he is called to fight an alien menace threatening his town, Japan, and ultimately the earth. Will he succeed where the TV character could not? Watch and see.

Zabraman is like the definition of Campy, if you were reading the Japanese wikipedia. Cheesy wardrobe and hokey story serve to endear the film more than anything else. It's like the weird kid in class, it's kind of interesting to watch what they're doing.

If you can live through a slow movie with an even slower beginning, and over the top silliness from a horror director, I say check it out. Netflix has it, and one copy is on the way back to the warehouse.