MovieChat Forums > Dai-Nihonjin (2007) Discussion > What about the ending?

What about the ending?

posted 16 years ago by drygraywhisper
27 replies | jump to latest

I just saw this as part of the Wisconsin Film Fest, and I was really enjoying it up until that final "end battle" scene that everyone else seems to love so much. For me, it totally turned me off from the movie. In a big way. Until that ending, I would have rated the movie a solid 4 (out of 5), but afterwards I could only bring myself to give it a 1.

I just felt cheated by it - I thought the rest of the movie was funny, sad, original, and interesting. I wasn't bothered by the crude (by Pixar standards) CGI, I wasn't bothered by the wild mood shifts of the monster battles to the subtle, more melancholy interview sequences, I wasn't bothered by the longer bits which others have detracted as boring. I had spent the whole movie getting to know a character who I'd become sympathetic to, who I wanted to succeed and have come out of his shell, and all of a sudden at the climax of the film, when I could have at least seen how this character makes it through this challenge, I'm instead treated to an agonizing 5-10 minutes of pure crap.

I understand that the style and execution of that last battle is an homage to Ultraman or whatever, but that doesn't make for good cinema.

So my question is: what in the world am I missing here? Why does everyone else think the ending is great? I feel like there's something important that I'm just Not Getting.

[–] drygraywhisper 16 years ago

(Possible spoilers here, nothing too bad, though.)

Okay, so I woke up with one idea in my head about the ending - during the movie, it's mostly the "fake documentary" style stuff, but during the monster battles, the camera clearly leaves that frame of reference to provide a "here's what's happening" cinematic experience.

Perhaps those sequences were actually sort of excerpts from the TV show that's based on Daisato's battles... And perhaps that last battle versus the big red demon thing ended up turning very badly and the producers of that TV show couldn't bear to actually air it (and perhaps would have generated ratings so low that they'd just cancel the show outright), so they just created some lame Ultraman-style show to show instead (and forced Daisato to appear in the show as well - contractual obligations or something). So that whole battle that we saw in the movie was just the actual broadcast that everyone else in Japan would have ended up watching.

I know one bit of information that I'm missing is what that "caution/warning" message said, just before the stylistic shift happened... The subtitles were white with a very thin black outline, and I didn't even notice that the warning screen was subtitled until it was almost off the screen, and I couldn't make it out. Perhaps there was a clue in there.

Regardless, it still makes for terrible cinema, IMO. If that is the case, I'd have appreciated at least one more interview segment afterwards, or something...

[–] erilaz 16 years ago

The subtitle on the warning message said something to the effect of "We bring the rest of the battle to you LIVE!" So the CGI battles in the documentary portion of the film are evidently the TV producers' cinematic fakery, whereas the cheesy rubber suits, obvious miniatures, and visible wires are "reality". Which makes perfect sense to me. In the films about giant monsters and transforming superheroes that I grew up with, those hokey production values were the reality: Japanese rubber-suit Gojira is the real deal, American CGI pseudo-Godzilla is not.

The audience is definitely supposed to be thinking about the USA in this scene, too: Super Justice and his family are red, white, and blue, and the big building in the background is flying the American flag. It seems to me that what Matsumoto is mainly expressing with these allusions to the US is the way America has taken over Japanese culture and how at least some Japanese are not particularly happy about that. Compare Dai-Sato's comments earlier in the film, where he says that he's not exactly anti-US, but....

Admittedly, the stylistic transition from the main "documentary" portion of the film to the rubber-suits-and-miniatures finale is rather jarring, but it worked for me.

[–] tstraton 15 years ago

Well ain't that just too bad guys? Go and cry to yo' mama. I loved every minute of this serious comedy! The ending too! So there! Really large...really.

[–] Josh-SY-UK 15 years ago

I was another person who hated the ending and didnt understand any of it. I love the directors work including "Gaki No Tsukai" which is one of my most favrouite TV shows, but:

*SPOILERS*
*SPOILERS*
*SPOILERS*

What the heck is funny about a bunch of people in stupid costumes spending about 5-10 minutes ripping the clothes off a man in a cheap red costume? It was absolutely redicolous in my opinion and i cant understand why so many people find it funny. I get what the director was trying to do and i find it slightly funny when thinking about the whole idea of it, but watching a unique and serious film for a long time and getting into the story and everything is pointless when an ending like this is about to hit you in the face.

I thought the rest of this film was ok even though it did get slightly boring at times, but it was all excellently done until it got to the ending in my opinion.

[–] DeathShrike 15 years ago

"watching a ... serious film for a long time "

The movie was serious for a long time?? I was laughing hysterically through the whole film. At no point did I think the movie was a "serious" film. While I felt pity and sadness for characters, and thought the political satire was strong and thought provoking, I thought the ending fit right in. Hysterical, wacky, sad and biting.

www.theatrox.com

[–] sphynx-9 15 years ago

I cannot speak English.
Therefore, it comments with a translation software.
When it is not easy to understand, I'm sorry.

My interpretation at ending

Red Demon Thing : North Korea
Ultra Family : U.S.

In view of Japan(Daisato), North Korea is strong.
However, the demon weakens as much as babies at endings.
This is the United States aspect.
The United States one-sidedly attacks the demon, and makes it nakedly at the end.
The scene where the string of pants is not torn off easily shows tenacity.
In the last beam, the existence of Japan is not related.

It is a comprehensible satire movie.

[–] gcatelli 15 years ago

the Red baddie is Red China, which, unlike North Korea, is much larger than Japan, just as the Red baddie is much bigger than Daisato.

i don't see the attack by the caricatured Uncle Sam and his "family" as "one-sided" -- the Red baddie has virtually killed Daisato's grandfather and is on the verge of killing Daisato himself. the fact that the Red baddie is filled with mere stuffing suggests that China is not as solid on the inside as it appears on the outside.

in the final scene before the credits, Daisato obviously is apprehensive about the Americans taking him into the heavens arm-in-arm. the relationship is almost coercive, but what viable choice does he have?

[–] sgraf_x 15 years ago

gcatelli, you seem to really get this film and all of its cultural and political commentary. The symbolism implied by the final battle is lost on me. I mean I dont understand why the director changed the style from cgi to live action for the climax sequence. Could you please interpret this or at least what you think the intent was?

Thanks!

There is NO Gene for the Human Spirit.

[–] gcatelli 15 years ago

"I mean I dont understand why the director changed the style from cgi to live action for the climax sequence. Could you please interpret this or at least what you think the intent was?"

perhaps he ran out of money. (it wouldn't be the first time a filmmaker ran out of money and had to just tack something on at the end anyway he could.)

[–] ericharder 15 years ago

The movie changed styles because the 'documentary crew' that was presenting the story didn't want to show the actual end to the battle that followed. Wild guess, I figure the Red Devil was his daughter, and he ended up killing her on national television. She was never properly taught how to be a monster, missed her father, and tried to spend time with him the only way she could think of. Instead of showing this career ending mistake, the 'documentary crew' and the Japanese broadcasters gave us a cheap recreation of a victory that didn't happen.

[–] drdaleposey 14 years ago

The guy was a TV action star. The majority of the film is how he saw himself - taking himself seriously, possibly delusional. The end showed what the TV show looks like when it airs. That's it. ......But why the continual "Take drugs" subtitle in the credits then ending with "But don't drink?"

[–] samsblood 11 years ago

No, it's North Korea. The scene where they wonder about the red monster's origins immediately cuts to a North Korean news announcer on TV -- that only makes sense in thath context.

[–] dbwindhorst 15 years ago

*SPOILERS*

My first thought about the ending was, Masaru, like his grandfather, is killed by The General -- we see the screen go hot white, which could be the PVO expected by the departing kaiju, given what we've seen of the previous deaths -- and goes to a kind of low-rent afterlife populated by TV-cheap suitmation heroes.

But in the commentary for the making-of featurette on the DVD, Matsumoto, or someone, states that the finale is just a wacked-out sketch they decided to throw in. Maybe that bit isn't supposed to be anything but some extraneous Ultraparody.

btw, the commentary also states that The General is North Korean.

[–] Mighty_Emperor 12 years ago

That was my interpretation.

Throughout the film we see the souls of killed/defeated monsters lifted up into the sky surrounded by white light. At the end of the film our hero is getting stomped to death and we see The General fade away into white light. You'd have to assume that this is him dying in a similar manner to the monsters earlier.

The ending might be a bit of silliness tacked on the end (I forgot to check out the making of before returning the DVD, so thanks for the information), as it is a little downbeat otherwise. However, it could also be seen a form of monster hunter heaven, where everything is less grim and gritty, no one is using him or ripping him off and he has fellow monster hunters with whom he can defeat even his most dangerous foes (a bit like when The Fourth was in action, everything was more exciting and colourful). It also helps underline the contrast between the rather dark and depressing, postmodern and "ironic", CGIed-to-the-hilt monster movies of today and the pure silly fun of the films back in the kaiju boom period of the 50s and 60s (in comic books it'd be like contrasting Watchmen/Dark Knight Returns with the Golden Age comics) - a kind of "let's make films fun again!!" battlecry. Perhaps.

These interpretation can work perfectly well with more political ones too, as it does feel like the film works on a number of layers (even if Matsumoto isn't aware of all of them ;) ).

[–] Raimar_Lunardi 15 years ago

Well, I think it was to be a "link" with the past, when Ultraman Tiga, for example was made like the final fighst scenes...
Very funny.

[–] yakowitz 15 years ago

O.K. i also see the symbolism in the end. I.E. the united states, Japan, China etc. but...
When I saw this i took it as if the main character was viewing his status as pop culture as being real, and we were seeing reality at the end. He is really just an actor in a bad t.v. show that is being watched in U.S.A but in Japan is no longer popular and is on in only the off hours.
He has a distorted sense of reality and thinks all this is real. That is why we don't see people running etc. during the monster scenes. It is in reality a set. We see this only in the end.
Am I way off base here?

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] AsHimself 15 years ago

When I saw this i took it as if the main character was viewing his status as pop culture as being real, and we were seeing reality at the end. He is really just an actor in a bad t.v. show that is being watched in U.S.A but in Japan is no longer popular and is on in only the off hours.
He has a distorted sense of reality and thinks all this is real. That is why we don't see people running etc. during the monster scenes. It is in reality a set. We see this only in the end.

This is how I interpreted it at first. The live action was how it was all along, while the CGI was what the guy imagined it was like. The only problem is that the film crew shows him changing into the big man and they show the rituals, they show him going to the power plants - which means the POV can no longer be from the guy. If that were the case, we'd have to be seeing his imagination through the eyes of the documentary crew, and that's just too convoluted. Plus the camera shows up during a meeting at the restaurant with the agent, and it tries to remain hidden, then again, it's not quite the documentary either. Near the end, the POV is briefly third person with the Ministry of Defense van, or whatever it was. You can't keep going in and out of the story like that - drives me nuts. The fake-documentary style presents a lot of problems if you don't do it well, and almost no one does it well.

That aside, I thought this movie was entertaining. So sick of the Vince Vaughn/Seth Rogan/Owen Wilson/etc. comedy crapfests Hollywood keeps churning out, this was refreshing.

[–] HoppingBunny 15 years ago

Enjoyed first half of the movie and got totally lost where the movie was heading with the second half. I wasn't quite sure if it should be considered a mockumentary format. It was just all over the places and confusing.

My life isn't any better than yours.

[–] thetheeyecreature 15 years ago

Having just watched the DVD, I came into this thread with the same confusion as the OP. I'm still not sure I understand the ending, but you folks have presented a lot of possibilities to think about.

Maybe it's because I'm an American, but I was hoping for a more satisfying ending -- that Daisato would overcome his fear and defeat the demon. I was also hoping he'd fire his agent (who seems to be ripping him off), stop allowing advertisements to be painted on his body, and regain some dignity and respect.

(And, Man, it's so embarrassing the way the U.S. is seen in other cultures. We deserve it, of course. Sorry about that.)

"The truth 24 times a second."

[–] HoppingBunny 15 years ago

Well, I thought about this a few days. I like one of the posters' point:

The whole documentary thing was in his head. He is the third rate loser who plays a minor role in the Japanese TV show about silly super hero. His a total loser. He has no place to go but down. He is da DAI-NIHON-JIN which means Great Japanese (like that better than big japanese.)

This could have been a really kick ass movie.

My life isn't any better than yours.

[–] cinemama745 14 years ago

The switch from CG to Ultraman-style fits with the shift from past history, to future speculation. The whole movie was very historical and charted the decline of Japan's power. THe granddad saluted the sun like a soldier of the empire. But portrayal of defeating North Korean devils is futuristic. Poor Japan ends the movie having his cup refilled way too many times by Uncle Sam!

[–] guer0071 14 years ago

Finally just watched it....

The ending was just typical Japanese goofy humor, as well us to give us the "this is wrong an uncomfortable effect".

[–] dick_james 13 years ago

I agree with most of the metaphors for the ending being discussed here, and to me the ending was the absolute best part of the movie. It felt though that the way it ended could have also represented the way American films are often made, being that there is often the Deus ex machina.