First,
thanks goes to Jessica Stan for sending this in for
review!
With heavy backing by Kadokawa, a largely English
spoken script and an international cast with familiarity
for its day, the 1980 Virus was posed for great
things. Like many Japanese films made with the intention
of appealing to a Western audience, though, these
great things weren't meant to be. While Virus
did good at the box office in Japan, the film never
got the grand theatrical debut in the US it had aspired
to. Lost aspirations aside, the large budget and Western
influence is felt even down to the score done by Kentaro
Haneda and Teo Macero, which has some great cues,
like the panic scenes with the virus, and some awful
ones, such as when the nuclear bomb goes off. ...unfortunately,
this CD isn't the score.
This 2011 release is a faithful reproduction of the
original LP release for the movie done by Teo Macero,
half of the movie's composing team. I actually had
the "pleasure" of hearing the original record
before, so knew what I was getting into here. In total,
of 10 tracks, only three are from the actual film.
Those three are "Adieu Mon Amor", "Main
Theme: You Are Love" and "You Are Love".
Everything else could best be described as inspired
by tracks, and awful ones at that.
To cover the cues that are actually from the film,
the CD starts off rather deceptively with "Adieu
Mon Amor", which if you are watching the Japanese
version is the opening theme. This track was scored
rather masterfully by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
It starts off rather ominously and drifts toward a
tone that sounds rather sorrowful and tragic, keeping
in check with the subject matter very well. Its a
fantastic track all be told. Following that is the
"Main Theme: You Are Love" by Janis Ian,
who became quite popular in Japan and did a song for
Tokyo:
The Last War (1989) as well. It sounds a little
dated today, with a folk-like vibe, but is still on
the soothing side. Finally there is an instrumental
version of the song, "You Are Love", which
was done with the help of the I Love New York Strings
Section. Its not as memorable as the first theme on
the disc, and part of the track wasn't used in the
film, but is still a nice soothing melody.
Now for the content that wasn't in the film, which
is the majority of the themes here. Starting from
the top is the incredibly dated "Love Sweet Love",
which had Dave Valentin on flute, Larry Coryell on
guitar and David Sanborn on sax. Researching each
of them will show that they are actually well known
musicians in the jazz genre for their day, but the
end result is nothing to tout but all the same is
one of the better themes not from the film. To make
that point clear, its followed up by the keyboard
track "Bedroom" theme by Chick Corea, which
sounds so simplistic that it's hard to picture it
as a commercial song. "Sweet Truth" has
Scottish rock musician George Young doing sax, best
known for having siblings in the AC/DC band, for another
disappointing melody.
Skipping ahead is "MM88", a track named
after the virus in the film which contains none of
the dread or tragedy that it should and instead sounds
very cheesy and mismatched entirely. Its done by Kazumi
Watanabe on guitar, David Sanborn again on sax and
Jon Faddis on trumpet. The next theme "Marit"
sounds like it would have been more at home in a Yuji Ohno score for the Lupin the 3rd franchise than
a serious drama. "Marit" is done again by
Kazumi Watanabe on guitar and George Young doing sax,
lending themselves to create something utterly lacking.
The final instrumental theme, done by Watanabe on
guitar and Dave Valentin on flute, is about as tepid
and unmemorable as the others. Finally, the last track
on the disc is actually a decent, piano heavy song
by Janis Ian. Its a shadow of the "You Are Love"
song in terms of how appealing it is, sounding more
like a sub par Bond song, but compared to the fairly
awful themes that came before its a breath of fresh
air.
Looking over the musicians and orchestras involved,
the original record release was a largely international
creation. Its pedigree betrays it, though, as outside
of the three themes from the movie, nothing is worthwhile
here. "Adieu Mon Amor" is fantastic, even
what I would consider iPod worthy, but its bogged
down by a CD containing so many bad tracks that its
hard to give the release in anyway a positive rating.
Hopefully, some day, a company will release the film's
actual score that was done also by Kentaro Haneda.
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