Superheroes by definition have super powers. In Japan, instead of leaping tall buildings with a single bound, these heroes often shoot energy projectiles from their hands — easy and effective, save when your opponent has more wattage. This may seem childish, but it can be fun, as shown by all those smartphone photos of Japanese teenagers caught in mid-air after apparently being zapped off their feet, which trended last year on Twitter.
I was expecting the same sort of goofy entertainment from "Idai Naru, Shurara-bon (The Great Shurara-bon)," Yutaka Mizuochi's adaptation of Manabu Makime's best-selling fantasy novel. And that is what the film supplies, with slick, colorful stylistics suggestive of the veteran Mizuochi's long list of TV-commercial credits.
But don't expect a romp, with beams shooting and bodies flying, from start to finish. The film's story is surprisingly serious — more Greek myth than "Ultraman" episode — and the characters spend much screen time explicating the intricacies of their powers, as well as the tangles of family and local history. Finally there are plot twists to be explained, not to mention, in a coda after the credit crawl, the unusual title. The scenes of funny and/or eye-popping CGI action, which the trailer understandably foregrounds, are accordingly scattered and short.
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