Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an action, comedy, horror film from 2015, titled I Am a Hero. Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care. Hideo Suzuki, a manga artist assistant, is drawing with his coworkers in an office, listening to the news. A news reporter is describing an incident in which a dog badly bit a 45-year-old woman.
The police couldn't figure out what exactly happened because the woman started talking nonsense after the accident. The next news story is about a 35-year-old man who was arrested because of performing obscene acts. One coworker notices how the news is becoming weird and Mitani, a coworker, makes fun of Suzuki and manga artists.
Suzuki then explains how manga is the peak of Japanese culture and that it's an honor to be a manga artist. He motivates the other coworkers and everybody yells "manga is the best". Night comes and Suzuki arrives home.
In his apartment, he watches TV with Tekko, his passive-aggressive girlfriend, and draws. He looks at his manga award and motivational quotes like: "The Steve Jobs of Manga world" and "The road to manga is harsh". Suzuki looks for inspiration for his next comic, so he takes a rifle from his cupboard and looks at himself in the mirror.
In the morning, everybody is sick and coughing at the publisher's office where Suzuki is showing his new manga comic about a macho guy protecting his girlfriend with a rifle. The publisher doesn't like the comic, says the protagonist is too normal and tells Suzuki to do a better job in the future. Then, another manga artist, Sensei, sees Suzuki.
Sensei is more popular than him but shared the newcomer manga artist award with Suzuki 15 years ago. Later in his apartment, Suzuki is fighting with Tekko who wants to sell the rifle so they can get at least some money and pay rent. She also wants to sell his award along with his manga books.
Tekko is sick of Suzuki’s failures and his unfulfilled dreams of becoming the next best manga artist. So in a fit of rage, she breaks up with him and kicks him out of the apartment. Suzuki then goes to the park with his gun and starts looking at Sensei's comic book.
Sitting next to him is a homeless man who is shaking and looks like he is in pain but Suzuki doesn't pay any special attention. The next morning, Suzuki is in his office with his coworkers, drawing and watching the news again. There is a report about a new infection that has already killed 4 people.
Suzuki's colleague is sweating and not feeling well. She leaves and Mitani explains to the others how she got the virus from Sensei. Mitani notices how she had the same bite mark on the neck as Sensei, and that’s how he figured out they were sleeping together.
Their boss enters the room and he also has a bite mark. They are confused and ask him about the deadline but don’t notice his eyes getting darker. Later, everybody is asleep at the office when Suzuki's phone suddenly rings.
It's Tekko who apologizes for last night and wants to continue their relationship. While talking on the phone, helicopters pass over the city, but Suzuki is too focused on Tekko and doesn’t pay attention, again. He immediately goes to Tekko's flat, bringing her favorite snack, and begs her to open the door.
Nobody answers so he tries calling her on the phone. Suzuki peaks through the letter slot and sees Tekko lying on the bed. Suddenly she gets up, making weird movements, and drops on the floor.
Next thing we know, she’s having a seizure while her body morphs unnaturally, like a demon during an exorcism. As she approaches the door, Suzuki sees her face deformed. Zombie Tekko attacks Suzuki and bites his hand.
While trying to get away, he accidentally stabs her in the head and leaves the apartment, fast. As he's crossing the bridge, he notices a woman with a bleeding hand and then dozens of airplanes flying through the city. When he returns to the office, Suzuki sees Mitani standing next to the TV with his back turned.
Suzuki thinks he's a zombie too but then sees him holding a bloody baseball bat so he quietly enters the office where the rest of his coworkers are dead zombies and Mitani is the only survivor. He tells Suzuki that the only way to kill zombies is to destroy their brains and that those who get bit, get infected. But turns out, Mitani is bitten too and when he starts turning into a zombie, he kills himself, screaming that the era of underpaid workers has arrived since all their bosses are now dead zombies.
Another infected coworker arrives and Suzuki quickly leaves the office. In the streets, half the people aren't even aware of what's going on. Some are walking casually down the street while others are running.
Within a few minutes, people start realizing that demonic-looking zombies are among them. Some start to run while others fall prey to the hungry zombies. Suzuki desperately approaches a police officer but the policeman is a zombie too and starts chasing him.
Suzuki's running away as fast as he can when suddenly, he stomps on a large group of people running in one direction. Cars are bumping into each other, city buildings are burning, and people are getting run over by ambulance cars. In all that mess, Suzuki notices a cab driver who's sleeping in the taxi and is completely unaware of the zombie apocalypse.
Before entering inside, Hiromi, a high school student, approaches him. She wants to get into the taxi as well but a zombie talking on the phone attacks them. Suzuki imagines he's taking out his rifle and aiming at the zombie, so he standing frozen shooting with his fingers instead.
At the same time, a man in a suit wants to take their taxi. They start to bang on the car windows and luckily manage to get into the taxi as well, instructing the driver to drive toward the countryside. On the cat TV, the news reports the attacks as riots.
It's obvious that nobody has answers. So they switch to Tokyo TV and see an anime cartoon being broadcast. Suzuki thinks Tokyo is safe because they are showing anime, but soon the channel ends the cartoon and starts reporting the attacks.
As they are watching, the guy in the business suit is talking on the phone, instructing someone to shoot everyone, even the prime minister if necessary. When he hangs up, he starts complaining about the poor and suddenly reveals a bite on his arm. His blood vessels quickly turn black.
He's turning into a zombie while saying: Hey poor people, give me a tissue. The taxi driver isn't aware that the businessman is turning into a zombie so he gives him a tissue. The new zombie then bites him and then complains about poor people’s meat quality.
The driver opens the car door and Suzuki manages to push out the zombie. Everybody takes a sigh of relief when the taxi driver's veins start turning black too. He starts telling them how he was an excellent taxi driver for 30 years with no car accidents.
Then, gets angry about it and starts driving like a mad man. Hiromi goes to the back seat and it's lucky she does because the taxi driver soon starts attacking them. Suzuki and Hiromi put on their seatbelts because the car is going at a high speed.
Soon, they crash into another car and start tumbling. When Suzuki wakes up, the car is turned over but Hiromi is alive. When they leave the car, they see how the entire road is blocked because of a massive car collision.
All the cars are empty and there's nobody on the road so Suzuki and Hiromi sit on the sidewalk and start browsing the internet to find out what's going on. They read how the virus's name is ZQN and how it corrupts the personalities and bodies of the infected, causing body disparities. They read a theory that the virus will die if you climb Mount Fuji when the phone’s battery dies.
Night comes and they find an abandoned house to sleep in. While they are eating the melon bread Suzuki bought for Tekko, they start talking about Suzuki's riffle. He tells Hiromi he didn't use it because taking out a riffle in public is against the law.
He sees it more as a protection charm. Hiromi then says she also has a protection charm - her earphones. They start listening to music and she opens up - telling Suzuki she feels safe with him.
When they wake up the next morning, Suzuki stares at her while she's sleeping, he likes her even though she's underage. But he notices a bite mark on her neck and takes out his rifle to protect himself. Hiromi then explains how she was bitten by her neighbor's baby two days ago and that ZQN can spread through breastmilk so she’s probably infected.
Hiromi doesn’t mind Suzuki killing her cause she's got nothing left in this world anyway, but Suzuki refuses and tells her he was bitten too. He takes the rifle and swears to protect her until they reach mount Fuji, hoping to kill the virus. They start their scary adventure and pass through a forest when Hiromi starts feeling unwell.
She asks Suzuki to leave her cause she doesn't want to eat him. As a farewell gift, she gives him the earphones for good luck and begs him to leave as she starts turning. Suzuki starts running through the forest and approaches a man he notices from afar.
But, the man is just another zombie. The zombie attacks Suzuki and is close to devouring his face when Hiromi arrives out of nowhere, kills the zombie, and saves Suzuki. With a half-demonic, half-human face, she starts taking out the zombie's body parts but doesn't hurt Suzuki.
Instead, she helps him get up. Next thing we know, Suzuki and Hiromi are sitting near a trailer park, and Suzuki's searching for canned food. Half-zombie Hiromi is not speaking and it's obvious how she has certain zombie instincts.
Still, she isn't a threat to Suzuki so they continue their journey to Mount Fiji together. A few days pass and Suzuki, now with a fully grown beard, is carrying Hiromi on his back when he finds a shopping cart on the forest road. Even though he doesn't find food, he puts Hiromi in the cart and starts walking toward Fuji Outlet Park.
When they arrive, the entire outlet is empty. In one of the outlets, he tries out jackets when the zombie store manager attacks him. Hiromi is sleeping so she can’t save him but another woman wearing a mask, Tsugumi Oda, kills the zombie with an ax.
She starts looking at weird sleeping Hiromi when other masked people arrive and start asking questions about the two new people. Soon, other zombies appear so everybody starts running toward a safe spot. All the uninfected people built a safe zone on the Outlet's rooftop.
Suzuki is invited to join and he takes Hiromi there as well, without telling anyone that she's half-zombie. The safe zone is well-supplied so they have everything, from food and tents to books and Rolex watches. Tsugumi is interested in Suzuki’s riffle but he tells her he's only a manga artist.
She asks whether quiet Hiromi is his sister and he explains that they met while running from zombies. Tsugumi starts liking the manga artist cause she thinks he’s a good person. She also tells him how the infected with ZQN are living in the past.
In the morning, Hiromi is observing Suzuki and he's wondering whether she understands him. She smiles and then Suzuki tells her a poem. Seems like Hiromi is getting better.
Later, Suzuki is observing the zombies and sees one of them running, jumping really high, and bumping his head on the ground. An old man, Abe, explains how the zombies are doing what they regularly did in the past, and how every zombie is different. Suzuki then asks about the zombies who sit on the ground and look like they are made from charcoal, but Abe avoids answering.
Seems like something happened in the safe zone that nobody likes to talk about. Afterward, Suzuki goes to a meeting with the rest of the survivors. They plan to get into the food storage below ground.
The only thing they ask from Suzuki is to give them his rifle. He refuses since it's against the law, but the leader, Iura, says that there are no laws in the safe zone. Then Iura threatens to kill the Hiromi if he doesn’t get the riffle.
Meanwhile, a few of the survivors are trying to take Hiromi and Tsugumi is trying to stop them. Suzuki suspects something, leaves the meeting in a haste, and finds Hiromi captured. He threatens to shoot the Iura with the riffle if they don't let Hiromi go.
The leader then points a gun toward Hiromi who's silently standing there. Nobody suspects that she can kill everyone in an instant. But, she can't stand it any longer so she throws the two guys off her with one single movement and then reveals that she is a ZQN.
Since she’s only half-zombie, her eye is not black but has rainbow colors. The leader doesn’t care so he shoots in her head and Hiromi falls on the floor. They take Suzuki's rifle while he cries about the girl's death.
They start kicking and punching Suzuki while he begs for forgiveness. Soon, they start fighting about who's going to kill him. Seems like even humans want the taste of blood.
Everybody starts fighting each other, and soon Iura is overthrown by someone else. They leave Suzuki alive and he finds Tsugami in front of Hiromi's tent. With the help of Abe, she hid Hiromi who’s still alive.
Tsugami explains to Suzuki how Hiromi is not like the other ZQN because she has a pulse. She also tells him how ran away from her duties and left her patients alone in the hospital, admiring Suzuki that he saved Hiromi. Suzuki's still sad because he couldn't pull the trigger on Iura and because he lost his gun.
He thinks he's a coward and a loser but Tsugami tells him that he’s just a good person. Suzuki then apologizes for being a human without any good qualities and asks Tsugami to take care of the girl because he has to go to the food storage with the others. Later, a few survivors are hitting pans to draw the zombie's attention to the roof while the others are heading toward the underground food storage from the other part of the building.
When they arrive below the building, everything is dark and one of them makes noise by mistake. While they are walking, someone turns on the lights but nobody questions this. They immediately find the storage but little do they know, somebody is looking at them through the security camera.
As they are packing food, the mysterious observer turns on music in the outlet, and soon a zombie attacks one of the survivors, searching for a snack too. They shoot both the victim and the zombie but find that the parking is filled with other zombies. Suzuki runs last, apologizing for leaving to one of the people who's being eaten alive.
Because of bad tactics and the selfishness of the survivors, most get eaten and killed in the parking lot. And the guy who caused all of this is none other than Iura who turned on the music on purpose to attract the zombies. Turns out, he had another plan - to take the only car in the parking.
In that chaos, Suzuki hides in a storage locker. At the same time, the zombie who can jump high is stalking the roof, preparing for one big jump. He runs really fast and jumps as high as he can, landing right on a tent.
One of the survivors soon notices the zombie starting at her and freezes. The zombie eats her and instantly attacks another woman, squashing her head with his bare hands. Iura is looking at security tapes and enters a passkey, allowing more zombies to enter inside.
Suzuki is still hiding when he hears on a walkie-talkie that a zombie killed almost everyone on the rooftop. Tsugami is scared to death on the roof where she’s hiding with Hiromi so she desperately asks for help on the walkie-talkie. Nobody answers cause they are either hiding or being eaten.
Suzuki is still hiding in the locker, going through scenarios in his head about escaping and killing the zombies which surround him, but in every hypothetical situation he ends up being killed. His fear and imagination are getting the better of him so he decides to stay in the locker but he hears Tsugami crying on the walkie-talkie, reminding him of Hiromi. He knows he must overcome his fear so he starts yelling and gets out of the locker.
Suzuki immediately gets attacked by a zombie that bites him. But luckily, he is wearing ten Rolex watches on his wrist and the zombie doesn't infect him. Suzuki then takes the walkie-talkie and tells Tsugami he's on his way.
But the two of them decide to meet at the parking lot and take one of the cars. As Suzuki is fighting zombies with his clever tactics like putting rice on the floor so the zombies slip, Tsugami is carrying Hiromi on her back going toward the parking lot. When she arrives, he finds Iura who wants to make love with her and leave Suzuki behind.
But Iura is also bitten so he quickly turns into a zombie. Tsugami starts running with Hiromi on her back but luckily Suzuki comes and saves them. He found the riffle and blows Iura’s brains.
Soon after, they see a large group of zombies chasing after Ade. The survivors get surrounded by zombies and nobody knows what to do. But Hiromi starts talking for the first time, telling Suzuki how feels ok when she's with him.
He then gets motivated and starts shooting as mush zombies as he can. In the end, only Suzuki, Hiromi, and Tsugami survive. They manage to kill all the zombies except the athlete zombie who jumped on the roof.
There’s only one bullet left but Suzuki manages to shoot the zombie in the head. Since the zombie’s head is already squashed, he's doesn’t get affected by the bullet. Instead, he goes right toward Tsugami and Hiromi.
But the hero doesn’t give up so uses the rifle like a bat and this time destroys the zombie’s brain for good. The three leave the outlet, surrounded by a river of dead zombies. In the car, Tsugami lights up a cigarette and turns on music while Suzuki is wondering whether he'll turn into a zombie himself.
And after all that, still doesn’t think he's a hero.
