EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to Matthew Hale on Letterboxd, I’ve learned that there are alternate versions of this Mill Creek box set. For the sake of completeness and my obsessive compulsive disorder, here’s this missing movie.
If you’re depressed and home alone with COVID-19, I advise you in no way should you watch the 1980 Japanese movie Fukkatsu no Hi (Day of Resurrection). Directed by Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honor or Humanity, Message from Space, Battle Royale) and taken from the book by Sakyo Komatsu. Two of that writer’s other books, Japan Sinks and Sayonara Jupiter became the movies Submersion of Japan and Bye Bye Jupiter.
Fukasaku took a Japan that had already dealt with the loss of World War II and being the only country to ever be nuked — twice — and created post-apocalyptic disaster films that allowed them to see the rest of the world deal with terrors like they did. It’s exploitation but in some ways, it also had to feel cathartic.
As I sniffle on the couch today, the victim of a plague in its who knows how many mutations, I don’t feel all that good about watching a movie about how a plague destroys humanity.
In 1982, East German scientist Dr. Krause and a group of Americans exchange MM88, a deadly virus that amplifies any virus or bacteria that it meets. It had been stolen from the U.S. and as it is being returned, the place crashes and causes a pandemic called the Italian Flu. This in no way feels like our life for the past few years.
Seven months is all it takes for the world to end. As President Richardson (Glenn Ford) and Senator Barkley (Robert Vaughn) die, they realize that the only way America can live is to move its authority to the sub-zero Palmer Station in Antarctica, a place where the cold has kept the virus from infecting the scientists from many countries who live there.
In a few years, Palmer Station becomes a melting pot of sorts where women consensually sleep with as many men as possible to repopulate the Earth. The only problem is that the Automated Reaction System designed by General Garland (Henry Silva) is set to nuke anyone that attacks the U.S., even if it’s an earthquake, so their little hidden paradise is about to be blown into space. That said, it seems as if a cure for the virus has been found.
The women and children and several hundred of the men are sent to safety aboard an icebreaker while Dr. Yoshizumi (Masao Kusakari) and Major Carter (Bo Svenson) take a sub to shut down the ARS after taking the experimental vaccine. In Washington, D.C., Carter dies in the rubble of a bunker where the missile system is. Yoshizumi contacts the Nereid and tells them to try to save themselves. He does say that the vaccine seems to have worked, “If that still matters.” “At this point in time, life still matters,” the captain replies.
The bombs hit and this is where the movie has different versions. In America, the screen goes to black and then credits. But in Japan, well, they still have hope. Yoshizumi survives the blast and walks back to Antarctica, taking years to get there, but finding the survivors and true love. He then says, “Life is wonderful.”
As every disaster movie should, this has a huge cast. More than those we named, there’s also Sonny Chiba, Kensaku Morita, Toshiyuki Nagashima, George Kennedy as the leader of Palmer Station, Chuck Connors, Olivia Hussey, Isao Natsuyagi, Edward James Olmos, Stuart Gillard and more.
Producer Haruki Kadokawa was the heir to a publishing empire. He entered the film business in the mid 70s with some high-profile features and thought that this movie would break his company into the international film marketplace. That’s why so many American stars are in it and it was called Virus. It was a huge flop and only played limited dates before being sold directly to cable. It was the most expensive Japanese film at the time it was made (a record that Fukasaku may have already had with Message from Space).
My favorite part in the entire movie is when Japan is falling into sickness and naked people are still in a disco, dancing and throwing up. That’s how you do the end of it all. I would have loved another movie that has the four-year walk that Yoshizumi takes from America to Antarctica.
The director’s cut on Tubi is massive and comes in at two hours and thirty-six depressing minutes. Every moment, I wonder if my throat will close and this virus will end me, and then I remember that it’s supposedly weaker now and I’m on meds, but man, MM88 is rough.
If this is my epitaph, let it be known that it was Guns ‘n Roses that finally killed me.
You can watch this on Tubi.
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