So, the other day I caught the '73 film version of
Japan Sinks (
Nihon Chinbotsu, 日本沈没).
The novel of the same name, published just a few years previously, posits that a change in the subduction of the Japan Trench essentially kicks away the supports of the Japanese Islands and causes them to sink in something like a year. Coming out when it did, right at the point when Japan's postwar economic miracle was booming, it was both a meditation on the ephemeral nature of national success and a meditation on Japaneseness. The latter theme in terms of whether those who survive could maintain their identity--marked by both literal and figurative insularity--without those islands. Indeed, in a perhaps uniquely Japanese touch, the leadership wonders if the best course might be to say nothing and simply let the nation die
en masse.
As an aside, in some ways the novel ends at the most interesting moment, much as does
Fail Safe. The idea of a Japanese diaspora, of their trying to maintain their identity as a sort of Asian Jewry, is a fascinating one, if difficult to imagine in its entirety.
Anyway, it's been more than ten years since I read the novel, but while the '73 film did seem to change some details the overall themes were much as I remember. As is typical of Japanese films, it's a bit more leisurely than a US equivalent would be, and as can happen with adaptations of novels some characters don't get developed fully. Still, I thought it worked quite well. As to the effects, they looked quite good for the era. A few looked a little "kaijuu," but without the obvious guy in a latex suit running through that wasn't so bad. Indeed, some early scenes of submarine exploration of the Japan Trench looked better than I would expect modern CGI to look, being realized with well-crafted miniatures.
There was apparently a TV drama adaptation of the story in '74. The opening credits are on YouTube, and look like something right out of
Ultraman. About the story I know nothing. The feature was also repackaged for the US market as
Tidal Wave, heavily re-edited and with Lorne Green playing the Raymond Burr role. Sources report that the result wasn't quite as bad as
Galactica '80.
There was a big budget remake of the feature in '06 starring Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (a member of the pop group SMAP, so you
know it's good, or at least meant to be). It got a lot of advertising on its release, but I've only seen about the first half on a very cruddy YouTube upload that was so slow I finally gave up. The effects are nicely done, and the essential theme intact, but unsurprisingly it drifts further from the original story. Now, not having seen the end I'm not sure if Japan sinks or not, as there's an idea presented of using a series of nuclear charges to cut Japan loose from the sinking plate and save it (nothing even remotely like that crops up in the original).
It would be easy enough to find out whether it works or not, and thematically that's a fairly important distinction, but I can speculate on why the idea was even introduced. Japan in the '70s was ascending, rising like a phoenix from the flames of world war and understandably proud of the fact. That alone (though perhaps also influenced by ecological fears gaining notoriety at that time) made a story of that success being inexorably swept away a resonant one. But by '06 "SuperJapan" was dead, killed by the collapse of its real estate bubble and buried under 15 years of lackluster economic performance. Perhaps that change in presumptions required an effort to save the country be portrayed? If so, whether it succeeds or not is an interesting question, and I'll have to catch the rest of the film someday just to see.
Now, what actually moved me to write this analysis was the film I caught last night, also from '06, entitled
World Sinks Except Japan (
Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu, 日本以外全部沈没, better translated as "Everything Except Japan Sinks"). Obviously, it's a spoof. It turns the idea around, having the rest of the world's nations sink and their refugees flood into Japan. In some ways it is still dealing with the same theme, maintaining Japaneseness in the face of foreignness.
I stumbled onto the first scene yesterday and found it hilarious. The refugee US president is in a Tokyo club, being razzed for his poor Japanese and that of Americans in general and protesting that it's a really hard language. I was really looking forward to watching the entire film, though prepared to cringe at some of the gaijin jokes I expected.
I suppose I should say right off that I was disappointed. The humor which had worked in the first scene got pretty forced and unfunny through the rest of the film, a view that seems to be shared even by fans of director Minoru Kawasaki's other comedies, and neither plotting nor characterization came together either.
So, is this just the reaction of an offended gaijin? I don't think so. Western gaijin do ask for a lot of it, and I really don't mind the Japanese positing a situation in which the cultural dominance is reversed. Indeed, some of the take-offs on the likes of George Lucas and Tom Cruise had their moments. I was more uncomfortable with the treatment of the Chinese and South Korean characters, but the film didn't wallow in debasing them as much as it might have (though I could hardly blame viewers of either nationality from having issues with it). Some ideas would be audacious in their political incorrectness in a US film, like a "weather report" on gaijin movements ("Many gaijin are expected to move into the Nara area tomorrow, so be sure to lock your doors and not go out at night"). When pulled off well I actually liked these, but too many were just flat.
A quick point on the performances. If you have some knowledge of Japanese, the delivery of it by some of the gaijin characters is kind of interesting, seeing which ones are coached into tolerable pronunciation and which into comically mangling it. Unfortunately, a lot of the English will be a problem if you're a native speaker, with issues like some really weak delivery and characters proclaiming their Americanness with distinctly European accents.
Heh heh . . . if you know Dave Spector, his cameo is pretty funny. If not, it's about as exciting as a tofu sandwich on Wonder bread.
Now, as I've mentioned in discussing other movies, I really like to see social commentary in Japanese films, and this situation is one that demands it. Pointed comedy is tricky but can pay off well (consider
Dr. Strangelove), but I'm simply not clear on where the movie comes down on this. It can't seem to make up it's mind whether it's pandering to the Japanese right-wing or parodying it. It could be that were I actually Japanese I would pick up on some clues that would make this clearer, but I sort of suspect that there was a deliberate attempt to be vague enough to seem to be doing both while actually doing neither (so
very Japanese, that). If you want an exposé of Japanese xenophobia, there are the pieces there to build your own. But if your tastes run more toward a justification of sweeping up all that furrin' scum and deporting it, the pieces are there for that too.
I can offer a couple of examples, but they contain major spoilers, so skip this paragraph and the next if you wish to avoid such. A major element of the second half of the film is the GAT (Gaijin Attack Team), a black-uniformed paramilitary organization under the Defence Ministry. It's shown harassing gaijin and rounding them up for deportation, but then the gaijin are shown ratting each other out for rice balls, so it's kind of a moral wash (admittedly, so is much of the world, but I'm hunting for the viewpoint of a work of fiction). Now, the climax of the film is when Kim Jong Il shows up and stages a coup. Prime Minister Yasuizumi (heh heh) tells him that the GAT will stop him, to which Kim replies that the GAT is already theirs. "Ah!" I'm thinking, "Now that's interesting, these strong-arm tactics are ultimately subversive." Wrong! North Korean agents try to kidnap the Defence Minister whose baby GAT is, but he foils them by using a suicide vest to destroy himself, them and the whole Diet building rather than have GAT turned against Japan, the country it was meant to protect. I'm sure Governor Ishihara shed a tear at that one . . .
This paragraph totally gives away the end of the movie, just so you'll know. Now then, one pair of characters are the Kogas, a happy Japanese couple whose main purpose in the film seems to be to contrast with the . . . the . . . other guy's (on whose character name I'm drawing a blank, no matter) horrible marriage to a gaijin. Ah, but there is a moment when Mrs. Koga tells the story from a children's book in which various forest animals go to live in an abandoned glove, living in harmony and discovering that the glove magically grows large enough to accommodate them all. It's then recalled at the end, where the global leaders (and Kim's thugs) are all gathered around a candle waiting for Dr. Tadokoro's prediction of Japan to finally sink to come true. "OK," I was thinking, "I get it, instead it will rise up and create enough room for everyone, a silly,
deus ex machina happy ending, but at least brings it together on a theme of mutual understanding and coexistence." And then Japan sank, the end. Eh? A few world leaders sitting around a candle, still holding guns, while Japan is (again) run by jack-booted thugs is your big epiphany for mankind? Did I blink and miss something?
[/spoilers]
Anyhoo, the upshot is that I'd recommend
Japan Sinks, either Japanese version, for anyone who enjoys Japanese films or disaster movies as a genre. As for the spoof, I can't really recommend it either as a good movie or as a so-bad-it's-good movie. About the only thing I could recommend it for is the culture notes aspect (which is one reason I wrote it up down here rather than in movies). I'll go ahead and post the first segment here (which actually is the highlight).
One last note, the poster has added a few text comments of his own, and even looped through a scene he liked a second time, also practicing CYA with big disclaimers about racism. Annoying, but not show-stoppers. The guy calls himself a Japanese nationalist but is an American who is "relearning" the language. A Nissei or something? Yet another of life's mysteries.
Edit:
A point in the film that did rise to the level of offensiveness occurred to me. It was this scene of Defence Minister Ishiyama following the anti-foreigner sweeps of GAT (Gaijin Action Team, if you skipped the spoilers).
Those markers of the operations on the wall map? They're Japanese roach motels, shown very clearly to be such in an immediately preceding closeup. Smile when you say that,
bakayarou.