Sekai daisensô

Sorry but this pathetic japanese try to create a warning about the threat of a nuclear war during the cold war is so dumb it hurts. The movie shows us how an international crisis escalates to a global nuclear war wiping out mankind! The second plotline shows us the life of an average japanese family in Tokyo which dies when the city is hit by a nuclear warhead. The problem is that this movie has a completely unbelievable storyline not to mention the cheap SFX. World War Three takes place in the year 2015!! but the cities we see, especially Tokyo, the cars, the complete technology is that of the sixties of the twentieth century. The uniforms of the military are pure fantasy designs, the soviets look more like nazis and the NATO-soldiers look like the came out of an extremely cheap SF-movie. But the main problem with this movie is that the whole scenario is unrealistic, the superpowers seem to trigger the war just for fun. No real political and believable crisis takes place, no military action that makes really sense (the script by the way doesn´t make sense too). Add the extremely cheesy dialogue and you know why the movie cannot fulfil its purpose. When the miniature missiles finally hit the city models in the end you don´t really care (actually you have to see some very bad SFX and see how Tokyo is covered by LAVA!!) and I was actually glad that this bad movie finally came to an end.

This is a story about the end of the world. It takes two hours to get there but when it comes its quite spectacular.

This is the story of two superpowers speeding toward war. In the middle are the Japanese and the people who live in Japan. We watch as the impending doom affects the lives of several regular Japanese, and we watch as the troops in the bunkers prepare to send their missiles.

Its sad its maudlin and its very dated. Special effects aside the film when dealing with the military looks all wrong, the fake superpowers are distracting. The fact that both superpowers speak in often oddly accented English distracts from the film, as does the fact that what they say is basically stilted discussion of the wisdom of war.

I can imagine that this film once rocked peoples world, in particular in the full 110 minute version, but now it remains as a talky, dated film about the end of the world. I'm not certain its worth seeing because it is so soapy and stilted, whoever it is important in that this film very graphically shows what will be left after the bombs drop, nothing, nothing but black ruins and dead bodies.

As a film 5 out of 10, as a warning 10 out of 10.

PS- If you want to see the bombs drop its about 100 minutes in

For days after watching this movie for the first time (summer of 1982 on TV), I would start crying everytime I thought of it. The version I watched was dubbed in English and titled The Last War. One part of the movie that was especially memorable to me (and inspired several poems) was where Seiko (the oldest child) returns home (after spending time with her boyfriend) to be with her folks and kid brother and sister so they can all die together when the bombs and missiles all hit in a matter of mere hours. She goes out into the back yard where her mother has just planted some tulip bulbs and breaks down and cries, saying that, next spring, all of the tulips will come up, but nobody will be left to see them. This movie was an ancestor to THE DAY AFTER, which was also well-made and driving the message home. In spite of the fact that THE LAST WAR was more of a low-budget film, it was, in many ways, more haunting than THE DAY AFTER. Anybody who thinks that war is cool instead of a last-resort necessary evil should watch this movie and understand that war isn't some sort of video game you play and then go eat and do your homework.

Toho devised this warning picture due the Japan was unique country that felt nuclear ravage in WWII, so it makes sense after an exhaustive effort spending in rebuilding process of Japan, so loose it seems unthinkable for the whole society, in other hand the produces didn't named these contenders, instead they split the world in two major blocks, the Alliance and the Federation and O. N. as moderating branch and the own Japan as peace mediator.

The picture focuses in a Japanese middle class family and some outlying characters, mainly on children, aside the slow pacing narrative on approaching of such upcoming suffering, worthwhile to emphasize the lavish small-scale miniatures of missile bases scattered in some spots around the world, several jets flying thru the skies and those marvelous miniatures of London bridge, New York Manhattan, Moscow's Red Square, Paris's Arc de Triompe and Tokyo downtown, it somehow soften the dramatic family story, overall not bad as some want imply.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2025 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.

I was fortunate to obtain a widescreen subtitled edition of this 1961 movie, which is really the proper way to see it, devoid of bad English dubbing and rearranged sequences etc. In its original version, there are some great SFX sequences by Japan's master Eiji Tsubaraya, who was responsible for all the Godzilla movies, but rather than shock the viewer for its "graphic" depiction of nuclear war, as the filmmakers hoped to do, they just come across as neat-interesting in the "Armageddon" way of filmmaking that we see today. What makes "The Last War" more entertaining then films of today like "Armageddon" is that the acting is better (at least the Japanese actors), and there's just a greater sense of style in films from this era then what we see today.

Not that the movie is without flaws. The anti-nuclear war message is delivered in a very pretentious fashion, and its depiction of how the war breaks out is, as noted below, totally ludicrous with no context offered as to why tensions are escalating between the "Federation" (i.e. NATO and the US) and the "Alliance" (i.e. the USSR) in the first place. Scenes of the "Federation" and "Alliance" at their military bases are shot in English and feature very bad amateur "actors" mouthing dialogue that no one with a real grasp of the English language would ever have written (the Alliance commander at one point utters a dated exclamation, "Egads!" among other things) We also get that nice coat of whitewashing of Japan's aggressive past as an Imperial power that infests every Toho sci-fi movie that gets on a soapbox about the evils of atomic weapons. And the ending blatantly plagiarizes the ending of "On The Beach" to not good effect.

Still, I recommend owning a copy of this in the original widescreen subtitled format, just as a fascinating curio piece and also the chance to see some great special FX for the day in full splendor. Along with "Gorath" and "The Mysterians" it shows how there was much more to Toho FX movies of the 50s and 60s then just Godzilla and other giant monsters.