The World Sinks Except Japan (Hong Kong Version) DVD Region 3

From post-apocalyptic anime to kaiju films to disaster flicks, Japanese cinema, more so than any other nation's film output, seems to be particularly obsessed with destroying the world, or specifically Japan, on screen. There are social, psychological, and historical arguments one could bring up at this point that I will gloss over, but the result anyhow is that there is often a palpable "all bad things happen to Japan" mentality at work, which is very apparent in a film like Sinking of Japan. Witness the joy and novelty then when we get a film that on the outset reverses this mentality: bad things happen to every country but Japan. One of the many amusing scenes in the film occurs in the beginning when the Japanese Prime Minister (Murano Takenori), gravely and automatically assuming the worst, is surprised to be informed that actually Japan will not be sinking.

Instead, the U.S. is the first to go under in the film. Next comes China, as wincingly foreshadowed by the image of Chinese take-out falling into a fountain. French bread falling into a river, bye bye Europe. As the elementary-school-map world goes under in a fiery splash of inferno, Japan alone is left above water, and the rest of the world comes crowding in, leading to the ultimate immigration nightmare followed by cultural clash chaos and eventually race-based stratification.

The film is chockful of mean-spirited, tongue-in-cheek, politically incorrect humor at the expense of foreigners. The American president jumps ship immediately when the going gets rough. The presidents of China and South Korea become the Japanese Prime Minister's lackeys. Shallow Hollywood stars are reduced to performing bad bar tricks for money. And there's the obligatory jab at Kim Jong Il. The impersonations are no better than what one finds on a bad episode of Saturday Night Live, but the more subtle zingers hit home, like when someone comments that the inability of Americans to learn Japanese is particularly troubling (Japan is often criticized for not adopting English as well as other major countries). Quite a few Westerners have fairly big Japanese-speaking roles here, and though the acting is not particularly good, it is better than what one usually gets from the token white man. Lest this be viewed as merely an anti-foreigner flick, the film takes as many jabs at Japanese culture (including the country's militaristic past), while the foreigners become increasingly sympathetic characters as the film progresses.

Where The World Sinks Except Japan really succeeds is in individual scenes that are more telling than expected. The film is mostly told from the point of view of a reporter and a TV producer, played by Kashiwabara Shuuji and Kohashi Kenji respectively, who at once embody the insider and outsider perspectives. Kashiwabara Shuuji and his wife have pleasant dinner conversations in which the significance of all the world's misfortunes is boiled down to what's available at the supermarket. Kohashi Kenji suddenly nods awake on the subway and panics when he realizes he is surrounded by foreigners, this despite the fact that he has a Texan wife (who speaks fabulous Japanese but European-accented English). While the formation of a "Gaijin Attack Team" amusingly lampoons xenophobia, Kohashi's character captures the burgeoning feelings of animosity towards foreigners on an individual level, a development that is all the more disturbing because it is understandable.

The film gets less amusing and more off-putting as hysteria and fascism settle in, and everything pretty much reels out of control near the end, a common weakness in parody films. When too much is built up, the finale is bound to be rushed, messy, and somewhat nonsensical, with a grand message that is more forced than felt. But what an ending it is. Even with the missteps, the film engages and entertains from beginning to end, and does not shirk from ruffling some feathers. If nothing, The World Sinks Except Japan heartily confirms what we already know every time we turn on the evening news - the world is clearly going crazy.