NIPPON CHINBOTSU

(vt The Submersion of Japan; vt Tidal Wave US)

   Film (1973). Dir Shiro Moritani, starring Keiju Kobayashi, Hiroshi Fujioka, Tetsuro Tamba, Ayumi Ishida. Screenplay Shinobu Hashimoto, based on Nippon Chinbotsu (1973; cut trans as Japan Sinks 1976) by Sakyo KOMATSU. 140 mins, cut to 110 mins, then to 81 mins. Colour.

   This film is more sophisticated than the usual Japanese DISASTER or MONSTER MOVIE, and involves natural rather than fantastic forces. Changes within the Earth's core result in the chain of islands which make up Japan sinking beneath the ocean over a period of two years. Other countries are not eager to accept millions of homeless Japanese citizens, although Australia offers its Northern Territory as anew Japanese homeland. The film has been praised for the elegiac feeling aroused by the dying of Japan and her culture, but not especially for its special effects (by Teruyoshi Nakano), which though spectacular are less than wholly convincing.Tidal Wave is the title of the tawdry 1974 version released to universal execration by Roger CORMAN's New World company. It was cut to 81 mins and little more than the special effects remains; it includes specially shot US footage written and directed by Andrew Meyer and starring Lorne Greene and Rhonda Leigh Hopkins.

   JB/PN