Movie Description

They Call Me Jeeg is a 2015 Italian superhero action film directed by Gabriele Mainetti and starring Claudio Santamaria in the lead role. The plot concerns a lonely misanthropic crook named Enzo, who gets superhuman strength after being affected by radioactive waste in the Tiber waters.

The film is a tribute to the anime and manga series Steel Jeeg (Jeeg robot d'acciaio in Italy, where it is very popular) by G? Nagai, from which takes up some thematics; the title is an in-joke based on the Alessia character who believes that the hero of the anime, Hiroshi Shiba, exists in the real world, and she mistakes Enzo for him. The title is also a reference to the spaghetti western film They Call Me Trinity (Lo chiamavano Trinità).

It received largely positive critical reviews and was nominated for several film industry awards, including seventeen David di Donatello, winning eight. The film was also one of seven films on a shortlist to be selected as the Italian entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but the film Fuocoammare was chosen instead.