| I confess: I was really looking
forward to Sinking of Japan. Knowing Shinji
Higuchi's penchant for eye-popping visuals
as well as his love of the 1973 original Submersion
of Japan, I was really expecting something
superb, something on par with the Gamera trilogy
and Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Instead,
what we got was a film with a bunch of superb
sequences of destruction tied together with sappy
melodrama. I am not much of a fan of the original
Submersion (I’m more of a Prophecies
of Nostradamus guy, shall we say), but
this remake seriously makes it look like a masterpiece
in comparison.
Japan has begun to sink into the
ocean. While the U.N. predicts this will happen
in a little over 40 years, a geologist named Dr.
Tadokoro isn’t so sure and after conducting
several tests and using a computer analysis, he
comes to the horrifying revelation that Japan
is set to be submerged in less than a year! He
feverishly tries to convince the Japanese government
to take action, but naturally no one listens.
When the Prime Minister, on his way to China,
is killed by a volcano erupting under his plane,
only then does the government start to take action
and begin to evacuate the people of Japan. Tadokoro
realizes that the only way to save Japan from
is by detonating a nuclear device under the crust
of the archipelago.
Sinking of Japan is a disappointment
in many regards. Perhaps I was a little bit hard
on Higuchi’s previous film Lorelei
(2005), as it at least was highly entertaining
and had a very compelling story, if a story with
a right wing slant to it. I’m convinced
that, as a storyboard artist for anime like Nadia
and Evangelion and a special effects man,
Higuchi has quite the talents but when it comes
to directing actual films, he somewhat falls flat.
I honestly, while watching the film, wished that
this had been directed by Shusuke
Kaneko. The thing that made the original interesting
was the film’s socio political elements.
It begged the question “What would really
happen if Japan were to sink in the ocean? What
would people do? How would the governments of
the world respond when asked to take in hundreds
of millions of immigrants?” Submersion
of Japan also had a sad, melancholy vibe
to it and a nicely downbeat ending. In Sinking
of Japan, however, the socio-political elements
are touched upon only lightly and the film is
cloyingly saccharine, featuring almost laughable
melodrama straight out of Michael Bay’s
Armageddon. Unlike the original, which
ended with Japan sinking into the ocean and hundreds
of millions of Japanese refugees now displaced
across the globe, this film actually ends with
Japan being saved from total destruction. The
film is not a socio-political disaster epic; it’s
just a silly disaster/action flick that is really
no better or worse than such trite American films
as Deep Impact, Armageddon and The
Day After Tomorrow.
The film does have some saving
grace, which lies solely in the film’s strong
visuals. The cinematography, by Taro Kawazu, is
absolutely lush and gorgeous and the film’s
camera work is very fluent and effective. The
film’s special effects and visual effects
work, by GMK’s Makoto Kamiya, is
easily its best attribute. It’s simply eye-popping,
easily rivals most of Hollywood’s work and
is quite an improvement over the obvious CGI of
Lorelei
(2005). Unfortunately, in one problem it shares
with the original, it’s simply not used
often enough. The film’s most impressive
shots are some satellite’s eye view shots
of Japan sinking into the ocean as well as massive
pans over the country of Japan, again from a kind
of God's eye view.
In the film’s other areas,
it’s very average. The music by Taro Iwashiro
is decent at best and mediocre at worst. The acting
is nothing to scream home about, particularly
from Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as Onodera, though Mao
Daiichi (who looks superb for her age) kind of
stands out as Tadokoro’s ex-wife, now a
powerful government official. Kou Shibasaki, as
Reiko, is charismatic, but she was much better
in films like Battle Royale and One
Missed Call (2004). In terms of character
development, wheras the original revolves mostly
around Tadokoro, the remake mostly revolves around
the character of Toshio Onodera, who in the opening
scene is saved by Reiko. The relationship between
both proceeds to grow (and lead to several goofy
love interlude sequences that might as well be
from the Star Wars prequels) and in the
end Onodera decides to pilot a suicide mission
and detonate the nuclear device to save Japan.
Overall, I really wanted to love
the film, I swear I did, but the film’s
flaws are simply too glaring to ignore. The film
is simply a huge mess with great special effects
work and beautiful cinematography but a story
ruined by silly heroics and saccharine sentimentality
that approaches comedic levels.
|
(2.5/5)