It
is the sort of film that seems to go out of its way to sow confusion. Since its
initial release, the original 156-minute cut and a truncated 108-minute
international edition have both been widely circulated. There was also a Teo
Macero-produced soundtrack, featuring funky tunes performed by 1970s jazz
superstars, including Chick Corea, Ron Carter, David Sanborn, and Larry
Corryell, but you will not hear those cuts during the film. Perhaps most
bafflingly, Sonny “Streetfighter” Chiba appears in a largely passive supporting
role. However, the narrative is clear enough. Thanks to the accidental release
of a weaponized super-bacillus, all vertebrate life is pretty much doomed in
Kinji Fukasaku’s Virus (trailer here), which screens as
part of the Japan Society retrospective: Pop! Goes Cinema: Kadokawa Films and 1980s Japan.
You
can blame us hawkish Yanks for developing MM88 and the East Germans for recklessly
stealing it. However, it will rather unfairly be dubbed the “Italian Flu,” because
that is where the first devastating outbreaks and consequential riots first
manifested. Soon it is sweeping across the planet, masking its presence by
amplifying existing viral diseases. President Richardson is quite disappointed
in the situation, but his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs only has a mind to turn
on our automatic nuclear retaliation system. This will loom large down the
stretch.
Seven
months later, humanity only survives on Antarctica, where the sub-zero
temperatures force the virus into dormancy. It is a difficult situation, what
with the eight women to three-hundred-some men ratio. It is particularly hard
on seismologist Shuzo Yoshizumi. He was so obsessed with his research, he submissively
allowed his pregnant lover Noriko Asami to break-up with him. It would be very
Seinfeld-esque, if it were not so tragic. However, he develops feelings of
protective affection for Marit, the sole survivor of the Norwegian station, and
her recently delivered infant.
Directed
by Fukasaku, the edgy studio hitmaker responsible for the Battles Without Honor and Humanity and Battle Royale franchises, Virus
was the most expensive Japanese film of its era. Despite its considerable
international distribution, it still bombed. A little distance was probably
needed to appreciate how Fukasaku fuses the Western all-star disaster melodrama
with a peculiarly Japanese foray into the surreal and the existential. At times,
this film is just plain odd, but it also boasts a who’s who of late 1970s Irwin
Allen and Alistair McLean movies, including the likes of Glenn Ford, Chuck
Connors, Bo Svenson, Olivia Hussey (Zeffirelli’s Juliet playing Norwegian),
Henry Silva, Cec Linder (Felix Leiter in Goldfinger),
George Kennedy, and the recently departed Robert Vaughn.
Yet,
far and away, the best performance comes from Masao Kusakari as the bereaved
and neurotic Yoshizumi. The film really gets its heart and soul from his
relationships with Yumi Takigawa’s Asami and Hussey’s Marit. However, most of
his scenes were axed from the international hack-job, so you want to hold out
for the long version (which of course, the Japan Society will screen).
There
are a number of wonderfully over-the-top death scenes in Virus that really put it in a class by itself. Granted, it is hard
to believe you could just saunter through the front door of a post-apocalyptic
White House, even with 1980 security technology, but silly third acts come with
the disaster movie territory. Arguably, Virus
was way ahead of its time, staking a claim to pandemic territory before Outbreak, Contagion, and Twenty-Eight Days Later. It is also a lot
of nostalgic fun to watch the so-of its-time cast, albeit in a rather
pessimistic context. Recommended for fans of apocalyptic cinema, Virus screens this Tuesday (11/22) at
the Japan Society, as part of their ongoing Kadokawa retrospective.
