Macabre…ish Horror Review: I Am A Hero

 

 

 

I Am A Hero, 2015/ 2 hr 6 min

 

 

Hideo Suzuki (Yo Oizumi) is an struggling artist who’s desperate to sell his comic. His wife, Tekko (Miho Suzuki), fed up and tired of struggling, tosses him and his stuff out one night. On the news, there’s talk of an outbreak.

 

The next morning Hideo goes into work and one of his coworkers is infected. Upon returning home after Tekko calls him, but she doesn’t seem to be home. She is though and she’s not herself. Her body convulses after she throws herself out of bed. She crashes through the door at Hideo and attacks him. She’s rabid! She bites into the door, snapping off her teeth then grabs Hideo and tosses him into the flat. They wrestle, she bites him and after he throws her off, she’s impaled by a trophy, right through the head.

 

Hideo quickly leaves but then he sees another woman with a bite mark and the air is filling with helicopters. Hideo heads back to work. A coworker is still there but he’s acting strange too. He’s pummeled another coworker to death and batters another with a bat, obliterating his head. Both were infected. Suddenly he changes, he’s been bitten. Still aware, he grabs the box cutter and cuts his own throat. Hideo runs after another coworker comes out, her head is bulbous and deformed.

 

Outside, chaos begins as newly infected begin to change and attack the uninfected. Hideo runs for his life. He finds a taxi and piles in with 2 strangers, one of them is Hiromi Hayakari (Kasumi Arimura) and they watch the news as they drive. One of the passengers, a bureaucrat is infected and is quickly changing, he bites the driver after calling him a peasant, then leaps on Hideo. Just as they get him out of the car, the driver changes.

 

It seems like the virus is activated by stress and the infected starts shouting grievances while attacking people.

 

The taxi crashes and flips but because they are belted in, Hideo and Hiromi, survive. After crawling out of the wreckage, all they see is miles of wrecked vehicles. Before the internet goes down they get more news about the plague and how it can’t live at high altitudes.

 

They camp out on a porch and Hideo sees a wound on Hiromi’s neck and she confesses a baby bit her yesterday. He points his gun at her and she says it’s ok if he kills her. He decides not too and the plan is to go to Mt. Fuji.

 

Suddenly Hiromi starts to change while they’re in the forest. Hideo runs and approaches a singing but badly decomposing zombie, his eyes dangly from their sockets. As Hideo fights him off, Hiromi comes out of nowhere and attacks it, she rips it to pieces then helps, a terrified, Hideo to his feet. She has changed but she’s not trying to attack or bite him. And although, she’s barely herself, they continue on together.

 

On the way, they scavenge for food and supplies. In a clothing store, Hideo is attacked by a zombie employee while Hiromi sleeps in a shopping cart. Another woman, Yabu (Masami Nagasawa) arrives and saves him, this time. And she’s part of a small group led by Mr. Iura (Hisashi Yoshizawa). Hideo joins them and pushes Hiromi through a throng of zombies. Citizens bang pots to lure the zombies away as the group make it to their encampment located on top of a department store.

 

At night they watch the zombies called the ZQN, they say they’re caught in the living past. One of them, a former athlete, continuously runs, leaps into the air and lands on his head. A woman furiously yanks on a door and a man with a melted face, forever waves for a ride. But some of them are more like insects, scurrying around on their backs on all fours.

 

 

The next day, Hiromi wakes up and she responds to a song Hideo sings. Suddenly, Hideo is summoned to Mr. Iura. Him and the others demand his gun or they take Hiromi hostage, which is against their rules and causes mutiny. Hiromi fights her kidnappers off and outs herself as being infected. Hiromi is shot in the head with an arrow and Hideo is stripped of his gun and beaten.

 

Power is rested from Iura by Sango (Yoshinori Akada) with the help of Hideo’s gun. He’s angry he didn’t get to have Hiromi, who unbeknownst to him is not dead. Iura is added to the group of scouts for the evening.

 

After entering the warehouse, the lights turn on and as they gather food music begins to play and the building starts to fill with zombies. The scouts are attacked and someone is watching on CCTV. The music gets so loud that it can be heard from the shopping plaza and settlement.

 

The athlete that does imaginary pole vaults, actually manages to leap on top of the building, right in the middle of the settlement and just like that, the free zone is no longer safe.

 

Hideo, from his hiding place in a locker, hears Nurse Yabu on the walkie talkie say everyone on the rooftop is dead. Not knowing if the scouts are dead, she appeals to Hideo, who she calls Specs, he is desperately working up the nerve to do something.

 

He finally manages to leave and he is on his way. Nurse Yabu, with Hiromi on her back, sneaks to the parking garage to meet him. She runs into Iura and though he orchestrated this whole thing, he’s been infected. He gouges out his own eyes then complains he can’t see.

 

Hideo evaporates Iura’s head after he chases Yabu, who’s still carrying Hiromi. Then Sango and Abe (Yu Tokui) arrive with a horde of zombies behind them. Then they run into another horde, Hideo shoots as many as he can. And the rest do what they can with the weapons they have. It’s not long before Sango and Abe are overcome but Hideo clears the rest of the hordes.

 

And just before they leave, the bowl skulled athlete makes another appearance. He races and jumps at Hideo who is down to his last shell. But he won’t stay down and goes straight for Hiromi and Yabu. Hideo has to use his shot gun like a baseball bat and hit a home run at whatever’s left of the zombie’s head.

 

The three of them find a car and drive out of there. Yabu reintroduces herself as Tsugumi Oda.

 

 

This film is based on a manga with the same name and it was directed by Shinsuke Sato. This movie is long but doesn’t feel like it. The zombies are fast and vicious, they repeat their last moments over and over until they attack. These zombies can talk but not in a meaningful way, they are not just violent to the uninfected by to themselves. The kills are very graphic and gory in this film.