According to an interview for the recent book “Discovering Tokusatsu”, Yoshikazu Ishii wanted to make “Attack of the Giant Teacher” for more than twenty years. Though not his directorial debut, this is the first tokusatsu movie the special effects master known for shows like Ultraman and others, has shot
Attack of the Giant Teacher is screening at Japan Film Fest Hamburg
Kenzo Miyazawa (Makoto Kojima) is a teacher at a seedy night school who treats his job with utmost boredom and neglect, until the moment he realizes that due to the failing student numbers, this year will be his last as a teacher as the school is headed to bankruptcy. Not wanting to go back to a life of hikikomori and suddenly understanding the beauty of teaching, Kenzo helps his numerous students organize a musical. Just then, a gluttonous alien attacks Japan wishing to eat two of his students. Kenzo decides to save them.
There is a scene towards the end of “Attack of the Giant Teacher” where Miyazawa's students stage a play to celebrate the end of the school year and commemorate their time as his students. The play, a take on the classic story of Momotaro, is embarrassingly badly staged, acted, and sung but in all of the cringe-worthy flailing around the improvised stage, we can see and feel the students' passion and dedication. In a word, they are true amateurs. This to a degree can be said for the movie as a whole. Though made on a micro-budget, huge constraints, and only for about a week, we can see the love and dedication of Yoshikazu Ishii and his crew to the tokusatsu genre, its history, and tropes.
Still, love and dedication do not always correlate to perfection, and “Attack of the Giant Teacher” is a great example of that. Yoshikazu Ishii understands the conventions of the genre he's working with, yet for various reasons, he decides not to stick to the most fundamental aspects of it, pacing, variety, and action. Instead, he chooses to dedicate the majority of his feature to the relationships within the classroom and the preparation for the school festival, while putting off the clash between the protagonist and antagonist. The last happens only within the last five minutes or so of the film. This might have been done as a nod to the kabuki theater or older kaiju films like “Daimajin”. However, while okay on paper, it sadly doesn't work here because of the lackluster final battle that robs us from the excitement and catharsis that the confrontations in the aforementioned giant statue series bring. Another more probable reason is simple budgetary constraints but there must have been better ways to deal with the lack of money.
Postponing the fight and focusing on the classroom relationships would've been okay, were the characters and their relationships interesting but they are not. Not in the least. They are rather boring, predictable, and just way too many as a number for a movie of such short length. Not only is it almost impossible to remember their names or faces but also memorizing their types, save for one or two memorable students, proves to be a burden. This lack of clear differentiation on the part of the ensemble cast, coupled with the frankly bad acting, makes watching the film even a bigger drag, which is too sad.
Let's not beat around the bush, “Attack of the Giant Teacher” will dazzle no-one with its camerawork or editing. Both are pretty basic and bland but serviceable. The same, though, cannot be said about the music here, which is by far one of the most unpleasant and annoying things in the entire flick. Not only are the melodies incredibly unimaginative and boring but they are often mixed in a way that makes them so loud almost to the point of drowning out the dialogue.
The special effects, though, are pretty good for a movie of that budget. That's a relief, considering the SFX is one of the most important things for a tokusatsu movie. It also makes a lot of sense, considering that Yoshikazu Ishii was a special effects director before and for pretty big tokusatsu productions, at that, and he helms the special effects here. The movie uses a mixture of classic style practical effects with more “modern” types of effects such as CGI. The CGI is kind of interesting, mainly because of its very amateurish aesthetic where all of the objects look very glossy, shallow, and weightless. It's a bit like they were made at the beginning of the 90s or even earlier. Or by a terrible CGI artist. In that sense, they are somewhat reminiscent of that disastrous Yonggary remake no one wants to think about.
The final clash is done using only practical effects and maybe because of that, is the most gripping and worthwhile sequence of the entire film. There is just something about the use of miniatures and puppets that cannot be felt in digital effects, however good they might be. Don't get me wrong, though interesting, the alien puppet is a bit childish and the miniatures feel just like what they are, small, but nevertheless, seeing them here is just plain cool.
Though somewhat charming and quirky, “Attack of the Giant Teacher” is mediocre tokusatsu flick at best. This makes it a waste of the time of anyone but the most hardcore fans of the genre.
