“Any student of history can tell you that a rational mind is not always a prerequisite for a position of power.”

There’s no way I thought this was gonna be over 2 1/2 hours. Make time for this to get the most out of it. There’s also multiple versions. The original Japanese theatrical cut, which is 156 minutes, is interestingly still mostly in English but with Japanese credits and lots of foreign dialogue. The US cut is edited to all fuck down to 108 min, apparently removing most the Japanese centric narrative. Tubi have both, but the original cut doesn’t have any subs so I recommend checking it out on the internet archives under ‘Virus AKA Day of Resurrection (1980)’ with inbuilt subs.

At the time it was the most expensive Japanese movie ever made and it shows. While it doesn’t have all the bombast of today’s blockbusters, it feels like nothing was off limits. They did it all. You wanna sail a sub round Antarctica? Sure fuck it why not. This thing delivers scale - characters, countries, location, narratives, destruction - and it’s a fully realised story from pre-outbreak through to apocalyptic destruction and dystopian aftermath. We get everything. This is a full course meal of escalating outbreak horror. Heavy handed? Sure, but it was fuckin entertaining, especially for something so serious (but not without its darkly satiric takes) and for being so goddamn long and meditative.

This is the full gamut, so get ready for a significant amount of melodrama and talking and political procedural. Outside of the horrific backdrop, this is a human story first. Even at this length, there are so many parts that could have been explored further but I gotta hand it to them for even biting off this much.

Honestly don’t know why it’s got such middling scores. This was a saga. 

“We have a vaccine of sorts. We put together a soup of every flu related vaccine we know. Its effect leaves something to be desired. In fact it’s more of a placebo than anything else.”
“You gave me a goddamn placebo!”

And the most terrifying conversation of all:

“Well, we really don’t know how to go about it just yet. Although the problem itself if certainly clear enough: Woman have became our most valuable natural resource and, as it’s just been pointed out, one to one relationships are no longer possible. This means that each woman, however reluctantly, will have to accomodate more than one man. Of course, we will have to go against deep personal feelings, and this is an extremely serious matter. But somehow we must find the will to suppress our instincts. And that is what troubles me the most. Can we… can we control our instinct… with reason.”

RIP Toby. 

“Life is wonderful.”

Pick Your Poison 2025
Day 12: The End of the World as we Know it
Apocalyptic 

My PYP Watchlist