REVIEW: DVD Release: Sinking Of Japan

Release date: 8th March 2010
Certificate: 12
Running time: 135 mins
Director: Shinji Higuchi
Starring: Kou Shibasaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Mao Daichi, Etsushi Toyokawa
Genre: Action/Drama/Sci-Fi
Studio: MVM
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

Based on a 1973 novel by Japanese sci-fi writer Komatsu Sakyo, Sinking Of Japan appears strangely timely - the apocalyptic action movie, in which seismic shifts threaten to sink the archipelago of Japan, saw its UK release while an earthquake hit off the coast of the Maule region of Chile, triggering a series of tsunamis. The warning message at the beginning of the film (“One day soon. Maybe tomorrow”) suddenly rang true.

Sinking Of Japan is straight in with the action: Toshio Onodera drags himself through the debris of an earthquake to rescue a young girl, Misuki Kuraki, from an imminent explosion. As a power line collapses and falls towards a pool of petrol, a figure emerges through the smoke and flames. Reiko Abe, a female rescue worker, carries them both to safety. True love is born.

Meanwhile, Dr Tadokoro, Toshio’s boss, is discovering that Japan is sinking, and will soon have proof that there are but 338.54 days left to figure something out. A series of unlikely events are set in motion as some of the population are evacuated while others die in their millions, and still more wander around looking vaguely unconcerned.

In the midst of the carnage, someone has the good sense to ask Dr Tadokoro if he has a plan, which, of course, he does. It only has a very slim chance of success, and nobody questions why it was not set in motion a couple of days earlier, but then it is a disaster movie after all…


In the tradition of American disaster films, Sinking Of Japan relies heavily on CGI explosions as city after city falls into the sea. The destruction of the archipelago is depicted by a series of shots from space charting the spread of volcanic eruptions and the seas encroachment. These become somewhat repetitive and take time away from the development of a cohesive storyline.

In order to justify the ‘sinking’, the start of the film is chock full of scientific explanations, something that would be brushed over with a broad “scientists say…” kind of statement in other films of a similar nature. This comes across as slightly heavy-handed, is pretty indecipherable, and makes it feel like you are watching a scientific documentary – a feeling that grows as statements such as, “Data analysis predicts time of geological event,” appear on the screen to explain the action.

The human relationships that should add emotion and drama are often badly drawn and lack depth. They also appear contrived. Dr Tadokoro’s ex-girlfriend just happens to be Takamori, an important Government Minister, who ends up running the country after the Prime Minister dies and the acting Prime Minister flees to safety. Luckily, this allows her to implement Tadokoro’s plan to save Japan. Convenient.

The music score is awful. During the emotional final farewell between Toshio and Reiko, a duet is sung in the background, the lyrics are subtitled, and all feeling is drained from the moment by the sickly sweet words. At other points during their relationship, desperately dated strings intrude to ruin the mood, implying either a very confusing ‘70s cop show, or possibly something verging on the pornographic.

However, the sentiment of the film, that slightly wimpy Toshio can only sacrifice his life to save Japan when he has Reiko to protect, is pretty enough, and Reiko, as female action hero, is endearingly unconventional. There is also a veiled jab at Korea, as it is mentioned that all of the world’s countries have agreed to take in Japanese refugees bar North and South Korea. There is even a shot of the migrants being turned away from Korean ports.

In general, the cinematography of the film is strong. The opening sequence is a montage of Japan’s landscape through the seasons. There is also a particularly impressive scene in the flat shot from the inside looking out, with Toshio and Reiko framed by the windows as they stand on the balcony with the sunset behind them. Of course, there are lots of buildings collapsing, as well, leaving the outlook appearing convincingly bleak, and the director makes good use of all the moodily grey ‘stumbling through ash’ moments, as characters miraculously travel miles, apparently on foot (possibly with some swimming through flooded areas), to arrive at exactly the same place as their loved ones without any from of communication.


Sinking Of Japan tries hard but ultimately fails to deliver. Higuchi manages to complicate and confuse what could be a relatively simple plot, and in doing so fails to make an innovative or challenging contribution to this well worn genre. EM

REVIEW: DVD Release: Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess

Film: Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess
Release date: 28th June 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Shinji Higuchi
Starring: Jun Matsumoto, Kippei Shiina, Masami Nagasawa
Genre: Action/Martial Arts
Studio: 4Digital
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess is the big-budget remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1958 classic Hidden Fortress from Shinji Haguchi; a man who is renowned for blockbuster-type movies and as such provides few surprises as he ups the action and romance this time around.

Assisting him are Masami Nagasawa and Jun Matsumoto as the young leads, with Hiroshi Abe taking on the role played (and nailed) by Mifune Toshiro in the original, and overall the cast proves to be an extension of the philosophy that Haguchi brought to this project: young and dynamic as they are.

The film is set (and filmed) in feudal Japan (not the feudal part) and begins with the near destruction of the Akizuki clan by the more violent Yamana, an event which forces the young Princess Yuki of Akizuki into hiding. She is accompanied by the General of Akizuki and all-round badass Rokurota, a samurai who has sworn to escort her back into friendly territory as soon as possible. However, to achieve this they must pass directly through the Yamana territory while carrying treasure destined for their homeland, a situation which introduces the young Tazeko (Matsumoto) and the idiotic Shinpachi (Daisuke Miyagawa) as the bumbling commoners…


The story is a classical one, as would befit something from 1958: princess needs help, loveable rogues team up with stoic samurai to help, trust issues ensue, bad guys die, (almost) everyone lives happily ever after. This is not a difficult plot to follow. However what made Kurosawa's original such a great film was, amongst other things, an attention to the people of the land rather than just to the heroes. Indeed, the inclusion of two characters from the lower orders of society helped establish a discourse for the often-silent inhabitants of the conflict-ridden territories that tales such as this are set in, something which inspired George Lucas when writing the Star Wars: A New Hope to tell the story from the point of view of his two lowliest characters. In this vein, Haguchi remains faithful to the original by revolving his storytelling in most part around Tazeko and Princess Yuki – for whom Nagasawa did a good job in creating a role that did not draw too heavily from the tired old 'heroine' or 'damsel in distress' clichés - as an unlikely and occasionally unbelievable romance springs forth. To his credit, though, Haguchi does not venture too far down the romantic path, and in doing so reigns himself in from one of the weaker facets of his interpretation of the story, but ultimately it proves a nice addition.

Notwithstanding, while Kurosawa certainly wanted the broader 'people' to be a focal point of his film, he also went to great lengths to establish Rokurota as a dependable and stoic character, and an incredibly cool one at that. And while Toshiro's performance proves to be beyond Abe, the latter still manages to turn in a solid performance as the unflinching and unblinking (quite literally, the man just does not blink) warrior. On the other side of the fence, we have Kippei Shina playing the almost ludicrously evil yin to Rokurota's yang as Lord Takayama, and his performance really helps to subtly shift the film’s tone in the direction that Haguchi seems to want to take it: family fantasy, rather than serious piece. That's not to say the story isn't serious, or that serious issues are not confronted, just that there are so many caricatured characters in this film that it feels more like Princess Bride than Seven Samurai.

The problems with Hidden Fortress: The Lost Princess are – to its credit – pretty much worn on its sleeve: on one hand Haguchi attempts to faithfully remake Kurosawa's stunning original, and on the other he tries to forge these borrowed ideas into something that is unquestionably his. The end result is a film which, at two hours long, sags in places, and sometimes doesn't seem consistent. The setting and costumes are brilliant, but the music (the last song is just ridiculous) and screen transition (screenwipes worked for Kurosawa and Lucas, they do not work for Haguchi) seem frequently incongruous, and a couple of key points in the story don't really make very much sense. Having said that, what Haguchi, his cast and crew have achieved here should be lauded for what it does well as much as it should be criticised. Abe may not be as good a Rokurota as Toshiro, but he's still hard as nails. Miyagawa's Shinpachi may occasionally flirt with being annoying, but the exchanges between himself and Tazeko are crucial to establishing the underlying theme and adding some comic relief to a film that is pretty low on laughs.

Cinematically speaking the film is well shot and features some very well choreographed fight sequences, including one on horseback which was difficult not to sit up for. Moreover the choices of location are sometimes stunning.

How this film was rated as a 15 certificate is beyond me, as it features very little blood, and the violence that is present is no worse than that seen in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. It is fantasy violence at worst, and as such I feel the film’s certificate will unfairly stop some of the people who would most enjoy this film from seeing it: children. Indeed, Haguchi seems to have attempted to turn Hidden Fortress from a serious classic into something perhaps a little bit more palatable for the family, without losing any of what made the original so special.


Hidden Fortress: The Lost Princess is ultimately a fun film to watch, and not a bad attempt at updating a classic. Not an unmitigated victory, but not far off. JD

REVIEW: DVD Release: Sinking Of Japan

Film: Sinking Of Japan
Release date: 8th March 2010

Certificate: 12

Running time: 135 mins

Director: Shinji Higuchi

Starring: Kou Shibasaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Mao Daichi, Etsushi Toyokawa

Genre: Action/Sci-Fi

Studio: MVM

Format: DVD

Country: Japan

With “2012 meets Tidal Wave” emblazoned across the DVD’s cover, this never promised much, but the sinking of a whole country would surely offer some thrills.

Japan, a country made up of many active volcanoes (so definitely primed for this sort of disaster flick), has suddenly realised that their whole country will sink within 50-80 years - but if that geological implausibility isn’t enough to stretch viewers’ rational, scientist Dr. Yusuke Tadokoro (Etsushi Toyokawa) has even worse news. Having spotted some unusual activity in the earth’s crust, he’s realised that this catastrophe will occur within just one year – 338 days to be precise.

Without getting too technical, and not wanting to quote from questionable terms and descriptions within the film, tectonic shifting is seeing layers of the earth’s crust melting away, causing molten rock to rise up and Japan to head in the opposite direction, but despite his findings being laughed off, the country is soon under assault from an increasing number of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

With no hope – even the president can’t fly without being wiped out by a surprise volcanic eruption – the country decides to evacuate, but with neighbouring countries turning their backs on them (of course, America also does the dirty in selling off their yen), they soon give up on their people and accept an inexorable fate.

However, Dr. Tadokoro wasn’t just going to deliver this bad news and then mope around (although, he does for the majority of the film), he also has an explosive plan (which he’s tried and tested with scrap paper!) to reverse the process and save the country, and many millions of lives…


On paper, it’s all very American, cigar-smoking gung-ho (and there are plenty of key steals, with the selfless act of bravery before the end – and even nods to the likes of Planet Of The Apes), and had they followed up on that promise, we could have suspended belief and enjoyed 120 minutes of brainless destruction. Unfortunately, taking itself far too seriously, and spending most of its time with talking heads (diplomats and scientists) furrow browed and scratching their heads, the film’s sluggish pace, lengthy running time, and the script’s self-pity only highlight its failings.

It’s a given that any disaster flick has to stretch the truth somewhat, but there has to be that element of realism. Although the film does its best with the technical screen shots, bringing all manner of scientific information to our attention, it’s in no way plausible (you don’t need to be a scientist to know this) that activity of the earth’s crust would suddenly shift at such a dramatic pace. And any kind of disaster on this sort of scale would affect more than simply one country – we never see how this catastrophe is and would affect anyone outside Japan (another key Hollywood failing), and, in fact, we never really see how it affects their own country (despite major events, and the aired reports, the population seems to go about their business as usual until a massive tidal wave pops up, for example; we see few people perish, so the affects of which are never explored; and despite the number of volcanic explosions throughout, it takes around 330 days before any ash begins to fall).

You can understand why so little time is given over to the spectacles, or to their neighbouring countries, given the embarrassingly dated special effects - to illustrate an earthquake, for example, the camera will shake, and a volcanic eruption may offer a random ball of fire. You have to question why when operating on such a clear low-budget, they would want to tackle a story which demands impressive, and big scale CGI in today’s age.

As if to mask the budgetary constraints, the film opts for a number of time-consuming, dour, corny subplots – one of the main characters, Toshio Onodera (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), visits his mother to reminisce about the family’s history, and she gives him wonderful advice that “some things mean more than life,” whilst a young girl’s mother wakes from a coma simply to tell her to “stay alive.” A convenient and ill-placed love story between Toshio and Kô Shibasaki (who we discover in more elongated scenes became a rescue worker after being trapped alone and scared following the death of her parents to an earthquake as a child) also rears its head, but the lack of chemistry, poor acting, and atrocious melodramatic music ensures you never feel for these characters, so the ultimate act of heroism doesn’t payoff.

There are also more serious and uncomfortable undertones to the movie. Firstly, the film has a lot of negative things to say about its own country, and the lack of honesty and humanity shown to their people (a minister wants to desert the ‘weak’ straight off). Secondly, it’s rife with paranoia, raising awareness of their feelings for outsiders (as soon as evacuation is mentioned, the PM talks of America abandoning them) and how they believe they are perceived – giving the sense of detachment from the rest of the world.


Tentatively following an already tired American formula, minus the financial clout or tongue-in-cheek, and with serious psychological issues, has produced an uneasy, but more surprisingly dull piece of Japanese cinema. DH