Suit actors – the folks who appear in head-to-toe costumes or ‘suits’ as everything from Godzilla to spandex-clad super heroes in tokusatsu (‘special effects’) shows for kids – have been fixtures in Japanese films and TV for decades. They mostly labor in anonymity, though a few shed the masks and move onto bigger and better things.
Take Masaharu’s Unsung Hero focuses on one of these actors, Honjo Wataru (Karasawa Toshiaki), who idolizes Bruce Lee, but in a career of a quarter century has yet to achieve even a smidgen of his idol’s fame and fortune.
Despite his frustrated dreams, Honjo remains committed to his craft of action, including stunts that test the limits of his middle-aged body. And as his position as president of the Shimo-Ochiai Hero Action Club (HAC) indicates, he is regarded as a pro’s pro by his fellow suit actors.
When Dragon Four, a tokusatsu show he works on as a stunt man, is adapted for the big screen, Honjo is promised an unmasked role – his long-time goal – but the part instead goes to Ichinose Ryo (Fukushi Sota), an arrogant young actor. Manfully stifling his disappointment, Honjo dons yet another suit, while trying to school the cocky upstart in action essentials, beginning with basic respect for the job and his fellow performers. At first an unwilling student, Ichinose begins to see the light as he watches Honjo strut his stuff in a motion-capture gig for a video game. This old guy, he realizes, is the real action deal.
Under Honjo’s tutelage and encouragement, Ichinose passes the audition for a starring role in a Hollywood actioner, Last Blade, directed by the ego-mad perfectionist Stanley Chan (real-life Korean director Lee Joon-ik). But a big climatic action scene, which Chan insists be done without wires or CGI fakery, requires a death-defying performance from the actor cast as a sword-swinging ‘white ninja.’ When he decides not to risk his neck, Honjo is offered the job and, over the fierce opposition of his ex-wife Rinko (Wakui Emi), who doesn’t want her teenage daughter to lose her father (and still has feelings for him herself), he accepts it.
Karasawa, who has played a wide range of comic and dramatic roles in a career that began in 1980, not only got his start in tokusatsu shows, but happens to be a huge Bruce Lee fan. In preparation for the role of Honjo, he spent four months in hard training – and his effort and enthusiasm pay off in a performance that is not just awesome as action, but stirring as a life model. True, not every 51-year-old needs to jump into a flaming pool or battle 100 attackers single-handed – but it’s nice to know that at least one can, suit or no.
Also Unsung Hero offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the world of struggling suit actors, who often take on very odd jobs indeed to earn living. One funny, but somehow admirable example is Honjo’s gray-haired male colleague (Terajima Susumu) who plays a female fighter without a flicker of embarrassment.
The film also shows the very real risks involved in making big-budget action movies, especially when a megalomaniac is in the director’s chair. But for Honjo, it’s all in a day’s work – and for audiences, a scrappy action movie triumph they won’t soon forget.