Nihon chinbotsu

In the wake of the disaster cycle of the 1970's Roger Corman imported this film about the destruction of Japan, hacked out about 90 minutes, added Lorne Greene and dumped it on an easily fooled American public. How would Gone with the Wind survive with over three fifths of it cut away?

If you should be lucky enough to see the full Japanese cut of this film you will be treated not only to a spectacular disaster film, the disaster sequences being what Corman primarily pillaged, but one that raises many interesting social questions, if you know a country is ceasing to exist, what do you do with the population? What happens when one of the world's financial powers ceases to exist? How does the world view the Japanese, or any country for that matter? The social questions are shoe horned in to the drama of people not only trying to survive the destruction but also find a place to go.

The full two hour and thirty minute version is one of the best big budget disaster films ever made. Actually its much better than that, its simply one of the best films I've run across. Certainly its infinitely better than the film that runs half its length and is its bastard child.

See the full version and avoid Tidal Wave.

Back in 1973, I have the opportunity to see this film in a lush big screen and back them that was an impressive show. Of course, anyone that has grown up in today's computer animated hyper realistic effects will dissect the movie mercilessly. In the other hand, we have here a film that depicts an event that 35 years later will make a good docudrama in the Discovery Channel. This drama described with precision a nation loosing his homeland to a great cataclysm that literally erase Japan out of the map, dispersing the surviving population around the globe separating families and friends to eventually live at the mercy of surrogate countries. I will love to see this film made again with today's f/x technology. Japanese filmmakers have matured well enough to create one the most shocking films ever.

This will be the first comment here that actually reviews the original 143-minute Japanese film, THE SUBMERSION OF JAPAN (1973) and not the shortened, recut 82-minute U.S. release version, TIDAL WAVE (1975).

THE SUBMERSION OF JAPAN is based on a 1973 novel, "Japan Sinks," by Sakyo Komatsu, that posits a series of geological disturbances, described in great scientific detail, that cause the Japan archipelago to first be broken up and then, ultimately, completely submerged. In the novel, the eventual catastrophe is presaged by a series of quakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, etc. that alert the most forward-thinking members of the scientific community to the fate awaiting Japan. There are a few main characters, but the book never gets very close to any of them, preferring to flit back and forth between developments on a number of fronts, including the reactions of various foreign governments to pleas by Japan to take its refugees. The ostensible hero is Onodera, an expert at underwater exploration, and his love interest is Reiko, a sexy, somewhat impulsive rich girl looking for a husband. He doesn't really have much of a part (at least in the abridged English translation I read), while Reiko only has about two scenes.

I watched an unsubtitled tape of the movie right after reading the book. The movie is incredibly talky. I would estimate that 90 percent of it consists of men sitting in cramped rooms talking. What I found especially frustrating is the lack of urgency. We see none of the smaller disturbances around the country that build up to the big disasters. We get virtually nothing until the 54-minute mark when an earthquake suddenly hits Tokyo and causes massive death and destruction. Within two minutes of its start we see Tokyo in flames and sensational shots of people trapped in burning cars and catching fire and being crushed by falling debris. No build-up. No sense of a chain of cause-and-effect. And then nothing for another 53 minutes. It's right back to the men in suits sitting in rooms, talking, talking, talking.

The movie is also poorly shot, directed and edited. There doesn't seem to be any attention to production design. The visuals are invariably dull or ugly. Nothing looks right. When the Prime Minister has his first big meeting with scientists about the crisis, it takes place in a small conference room of the type you'd find in a public school or local government office. They seem to have shot wherever they could get quick access to an actual interior instead of actually building sets or seeking locations that looked good on film. I don't know whether they thought this would make it look realistic or semi-documentary or something, but it makes the whole enterprise look incredibly cheap. Also, there are very few establishing shots, so we almost never know where anything is taking place. Every time the scene changes, it's a cut from one cramped interior with one group of characters to another cramped interior with another group of characters that could be down the hall or a thousand miles away for all we know.

While watching it, I kept thinking back to Ishiro Honda's films, most notably GODZILLA (1954) and RODAN (1957). Any one of his films looked far better, cinematically, and far more realistic in their depictions of disaster than this film did. Why didn't Toho hire Honda to direct this? He was, after all, the studio's in-house expert on the use of miniature sets in the destruction of Tokyo and would certainly have gotten a lot more mileage out of the miniatures used here than this director, Shiro Moritani, did.

The one major star in the cast, Tetsuro Tanba (YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, MESSAGE FROM SPACE), plays the Prime Minister, who becomes much more of a major character than he was in the book and is seen, uncharacteristically, yelling and carrying on at a high emotional pitch in several scenes. (Why does he yell at the top of his lungs over the phone at a helicopter pilot who is simply trying to report on the Tokyo fire and earthquake? Is that something a Prime Minister would do?) Also in the cast, in the role of Onodera, is Hiroshi Fujioka, better known to U.S. fans of Japanese fantasy as "Kamen Rider," from the TV series of that name. (He was also the star of the U.S.-made Samurai-in-ice thriller, GHOST WARRIOR, 1982.)

I should point out that I've also seen Roger Corman's edited version of this film, TIDAL WAVE (1975), which I remember as being pretty awful. I used to harbor hard feelings toward Corman for the butchery he performed on the original film, but, having finally seen the original, I can't see any way this film could have been released, as is, in the U.S. It's just too long, slow, talky and cheap-looking.

Once again the beautiful city of Japan is threatened by natural disasters. Lord knows Japan has suffered through a lifetime of loss by tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanos. The special effects are good and the storyline is less than exciting even to a devoted disaster movie fan like me. I would recommend anyone to view it once, that is if it is ever aired again. You will find the movie at least partly entertaining as long as the network does'nt show too many commercials to lose your interest.

I don't know WHAT some other reviewers on here were watching...but it certainly could not have been the original "Nippon Chinbotsu" (aka" Submersion of Japan")...but probably the Roger Corman cheapie-chopped version known as "Tidal Wave".

To which...if it were "Tidal Wave" (made, as always...by schlockmeister Corman...to make a quick buck piggybacking on the coattails of the Mid 70s disaster craze)...then yep (aside from the Special Effects...which are amazing in either version), then I grant you..."Tidal Wave" is pretty bad.

But the Japanese Original? Is EVERY BIT on par (if not better than) The Towering Inferno and Earthquake...combined.

The Towering Inferno was also "talky". So to whomever said that Chinbotsu was "talky"...fails to realize that the BEST disaster films always flesh out the characters and the actors actually ACT. (Not just jump out of skyscraper windows or roll down hills in a train car attacked by Killer Bees).

As for the SpFX? For its time...they are of ELITE caliber. The tidal wave sequences, volcanic eruptions are "Cecil B DeMille/Irwin Allen" level...all the way.

The original (of course) wouldn't "translate well to American Audiences", and is exactly why Corman bought it up/chopped it up, dumbed it down..tossed Lorne Greene in it and released it as "Tidal Wave".

But the ORIGINAL version of this film.... IF you can ever be fortunate enough to see it or get your hands on it...is "The Poseidon Adventure...of Japan disaster films".

It is simply...an epic and the very best disaster film they ever made.

But same as "The Japanese often seem to LOVE American Made Disaster Films" (Poseidon, Towering Inferno, Earthquake...ALL made big bucks in Japan, long after they ended their US box office runs...but they ALSO EVEN seem to like the ones that tend to bomb. Japan gave some "extra legs" to pathetic films like The Swarm and Meteor.

So, in retrospect...simply because "Tidal Wave" was a cheeseball chop chop version released here by Corman and his garbage-makers...should NOT cause any disdain to the epic that Nippon Chinbotsu is and was.

That original film...deserves a NEW RELEASE HERE. For it was a masterwork.