Ever since Godzilla lurched out of the Pacific in 1954, Japan's had a problem with giant monsters. Rodan, Gamera, Mothra -- the Land of the Rising Sun's had a rough few decades.

Enter Masaru Daisato, a sixth-generation hero who grows to skyscraper size when he's blasted with massive jolts of electricity, so that he can fight off whatever mutated dinosaur happens to stumble into Tokyo. But unlike his ancestors, Daisato isn't considered a savior so much as a nuisance, with the citizens he protects blaming him for collateral damage and even complaining about the noise.

Big Man Japan is shot as a documentary, with the cameras following Daisato as he goes about his daily routine and an off-camera voice prompting his ruminations on cats. When he's not fighting building-sized creatures, Daisato drinks and loafs around his slummy apartment waiting for the call from the Department of Monster Defense (signaled by running pairs of his signature purple briefs up flagpoles).

Because of declining popularity, his televised fights air in the middle of the night, and his agent's reduced him to selling ad space on his chest. And those aren't shlubby Daisato's only problems. His senile grandfather is still transforming but sometimes forgets clean underwear, his ex-wife only lets him see his daughter once a month -- it's hard out there for a giant.

Daisato's sad sack existence is played for laughs, and weirder laughs you won't find this year. From "Stink Monster," who smells ten thousand times as bad as human crap to monster nipple jokes, it's obviously a highbrow affair, with co-writer and director Hitoshi Matsumoto (who also stars) reveling in juvenile humor taken to larger-than-life extremes. But it also pokes fun at family honor, commercialism, and the classic Japanese tradition of kaiju, or "strange beast" movies, with CG monster fights every bit as bad as the effects of the '50s and '60s movies it pays homage to, and mercilessly mocks.

Matsumoto is huge at home, but Big Man Japan may be a tough sell stateside. Will a dark comedy based on a cheesy Japanese film tradition make sense to an American audience, especially when it's crossed with giant-sized fart jokes? Who knows? But it'll be a while until something quite this unusual makes it to the theaters again (it opens in limited release May 15). And that may be reason enough to give it a shot. Look at it this way: The big competition that weekend is Angels & Demons, the Da Vinci Code sequel. I think I'll take the Stink Monster.

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