TBS Tokyo Broadcasting System, Inc. MOVIES
SINKING OF JAPAN
-- It’ll Take Another Miracle to Survive --Sometime in the Future… Perhaps Tomorrow
127 Million Japanese Will Live Their Worst Nightmare!
One Man Must Risk His Life to Save the Woman
and the Country He Loves
SYNOPSIS
“There are many who would prefer to stay and go down with their country. I feel the same way.” - Prime Minister Yamamoto、before perishing in a volcanic eruption.
Japan has just received its death sentence. In less than a year, the island nation will sink!
Earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions roil the country, leaving millions dead and stranded. Japan’s only hope lies with one plan… and one man!
To save his country and the woman he loves, a submarine pilot must make the ultimate sacrifice!
Experience on film an unprecedented natural disaster with all the realism and devastating force that is all too familiar to the people of Japan!
Story
The sun sets on Japan
The global scientific community has discovered that in less than 40 years the archipelago of Japan will sink, due to a collision of tectonic plates. A massive plan for the exodus of a nation’ s population gets underway as Prime Minister Yamamoto (Kenji Ishizaka) prepares for a diplomatic mission to plead with foreign governments to accept waves of Japanese over the next few decades. He appoints a woman in his cabinet, Saori Takamori (Mao Daichi), to serve as his Minister of Crisis Management and Disaster Prevention.
In the underwater trenches off near the Cook Islands, Tetsuo Onodera (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) pilots a submersible vessel under leading geoscientist, Yusuke Tadokoro (Etsushi Toyokawa). Only days before,
Tetsuo had saved the life of a young girl, Misaki, (Mayuko Fukuda) in a massive earthquake thanks to a heroic female rescue worker, Reiko (Ko Shibasaki). A bond begins to form between them. But now Tetsuo’
s boss, Tadokoro, has stumbled upon evidence that Japan’s disintegration will occur much more rapidly − in 338.54 days! The government is alerted, but Tadokoro’s theory is dismissed as alarmist.
The earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions come in rapid succession, plunging the nation into panic. When the Prime Minister perishes in an airplane accident, it throws the cabinet into disarray.
Amid the leadership vacuum, Saori Takamori, finds herself center stage in the crisis but helpless in the face of mounting losses of life and insufficient evacuation efforts. She turns to Tadokoro, her ex-husband,
for advice:
“Just tell me how we can save even 1,000 lives, 100 lives, even one extra life… and I will do it.”
Meanwhile, a spiritual bond develops between Onodera and Reiko, both of whom feel compelled to look after Misaki. When Onodera is offered safe haven in England as an ocean researcher, he asks Reiko to join him. But Reiko’s dedication to her job compels her to refuse. “I couldn’t live with myself.” Struck by Reiko’ s dedication to human life, Onodera decides to pilot the only vessel that can recover the last critical detonator, though it means he may not come back alive. “There are lives I have to protect,” he tells Tadokoro, “whatever the cost.” Much of the archipelago is already under water. It’s up to one man to salvage what’s left of a nation.
Production Note
Japan’s “War of the Worlds” Resurfaces after 33 Years!
When Sakyo Komatsu’s novel, “Japan Sinks” hit the bookstores in March 1973, it became an instant bestseller followed quickly by a landmark motion picture with a
production cost considered stellar in its day. The film broke box office records, drawing 6.5 million people and earning $40 million (the equivalent of $80 million today).
The story grew into a social and cultural phenomenon that has since attached itself to the national psyche. Now 33 years later, director Shinji Higuchi resuscitates Japan’s
legendary equivalent of the “War of the Worlds”, against a contemporary backdrop with an all-star cast, a $25 million production budget and all the modern day filmmaking
techniques to do full justice to the original novel’s vision. Under leading special effects masters, Katsuro Onoue and Makoto Kamiya, the film’s dazzling disaster footage is
based on actual simulations of a total submersion of Japan and crisis management scenarios, and is made with the full support and cooperation of The Japan Defense Agency,
the Japan Ground Self Defense Force, the Japan Air Self Defense Force, Tokyo Fire Department and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) .
The result is a blockbuster movie of historic proportions.
The Original “Japan Sinks” Inspires a Film Career
About Director Shinji Higuchi
Born in 1965, Higuchi began his movie career as special effects assistant on the 1984 “Godzilla” film and developed into an award-winning effects specialists for his work on a series of
“Gamera” films, writing and drawing storyboards for the internationally-acclaimed TV anime series “Evangelion,” and even working under late film master,
Akira Kurosawa, on a short digital animation film, “Flying: A Dream I Had”. Since 2001, he has served as special effects designer for a host of films including Seijun Suzuki
’s “Pistol Opera” (’01), Shinsuke Satoh’s “The Princess Blade” (’01)” and “Dragonhead” (’03), finally making his full-length feature directorial debut with the hit 2005
Japanese human drama thriller, “Lorelei” (’05). Higuchi says it was seeing the original “Japan Sinks” as a 9-year-old boy that inspired him to get into filmmaking.
Production Note
Japan’s “War of the Worlds” Resurfaces after 33 Years!
Movie Data
Information of distribution in Japan
Japan Release: July 15th, 2006
Distributed by TOHO
Staff List
Executive Producers: Kunikatsu Kondo, Kazuya Hamana / Producer: Toshiaki Nakazawa / Original Novel: Sakyo Komatsu / Screenplay: Masato Kato / Music: Taro Iwadai / Supervisor of Visual Effects: Katsuro Onoue / Director of Special Effects: Makoto Kamiya / VFX Producer: Tetsuo Ohya / Line Producer: Hirotsugu Yoshida
Cast List
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (Tetsuo Onodera), Kou Shibasaki (Reiko), Kouji Ishizaka(Prime Minister Yamamoto), Mao Daichi(Saori Takamori), Etsushi Toyokawa(Yusuke Tadokoro), Mayuko Fukuda(Misaki)