FUKKATSU NO HI, as a film, really has everything conceivable going for it. It's based on a source novel by the inimitable Japanese science fiction master Sakyo Komatsu, features a huge cast of well known actors from both around the world, directorial duties by the then well known Kinji Fukasaku, and a wonderful theme song (Toujours Gai Mon Cher; Janis Ian). It also managed to go disproportionately over-budget, costing an estimated $16,000,000 once all was said and done, leaving it the most expensive Japanese production for years to come.

The story begins in the then near future of 1981 with the accidental creation of a viral monstrosity by the name of MM-88 - a sample of which was smuggled out of the United States and into the Soviet Union. Distressed with the realization of what such a virus could be capable of, a German scientists decides to try and smuggle a sample of it back out of the Soviet Union and into the hands of several representatives of the Swiss Government in hopes that a group of that country's scientists can develop a vaccine. Unfortunately his Swiss contacts are really covert American operatives who leave him to die at the hands of Eastern block German soldiers. Worse, the Americans' plane crashes in the Alps and the container housing the virus is breached.

Back in America tension in high levels of the military is rising. The attempt at retrieving the virus from East Germany has failed miserably and the scientist in charge of creating a vaccine for the military (who secretly intend to use the virus as a weapon) is minutes away from reporting the gross misconduct on the part of high-ranking officials to the Senate. The military will have none of it, and the scientist is locked away in an asylum while they try to keep their dirty little secret a dirty little secret. By April of 1982 livestock has begun to die in the Alps. The cause of the deaths is a mystery to the local herders, and before long the virus has jumped to the human populace. Christened the 'Italian Flu', the virus begins making its rounds in Europe, with devastating results.

Cut to May of 1982. In Antarctica, a Japanese polar team is working to expand its base when it receives reports about the spread of the Virus. Through a conversation with the local British base it is learned that the Italian Flu has spread to Africa. Even more frightening, the virus is not only affecting the people but also the wildlife. It seems that no form of vertebrate life is capable of surviving the epidemic. Outside of the base, Yoshimizu (Masaro Kusakari) is assisting with the setting of explosive charges. He reminisces about his girlfriend in Japan, whom he left to take the assignment in Antarctica. The rest of the team is ill at ease as well, as the health and well-being of their loved ones back home is suddenly put at terrible risk.

By June of 1982 the virus has appeared in mainland Japan, with results much the same as those seen elsewhere in the world. Hospitals are filled to critical mass with incurable patients and even the staff are beginning to succumb to the degenerative effects of the Italian Flu. Yoshimizu's girlfriend is shown, not suffering from the effects of the flu, but from morning sickness. His friend, Tasano's (Tsunehiko Watase), wife and child, there to see the doctor themselves, take care of her after she suffers a miscarriage. The sense of foreboding worldwide is escalating as all efforts to hinder the spread of the Italian Flu fail.

Riots begin to break out worldwide, with the United States waiting with growing concern for the virus to reach American shores. Protesters gather around the capital in an attempt to force the government into creating effective vaccines. It is made apparent in short order that the government itself was kept in the dark about the existence of MM-88, even as a military operation funded by it continued to work with the virus as a potential weapon. Unable to create an effective vaccine, doctors begin giving people cocktails of vaccines for various forms of flu to no great effect. General Garland (Henry Silva) tries to get the President (Glenn Ford) to activate the A.R.S., an automatic retaliatory system meant to defend the United States against oncoming Soviet missiles. Even as fear that the Soviets created MM-88 grow, the news comes in that even members of the Soviet government are beginning to die from it.

In Japan, martial law is declared. Army battalions line the streets as the virus continues its horrid spread through the country, leaving streets deserted and piles of dead burning in its wake. Hospitals that were at first only unprepared are now beginning to fall apart completely. Staff are beginning to die in mass to the effects of the flu and the population of the country itself begins to decline exponentially. Hopes fall as the rest of the world begins to become aware of just how total the devastation wrought by the virus will be.

By August of 1982 nearly everyone on Earth is dead or dying of the flu. The Japanese polar station isn't receiving signals from anywhere and the team itself is starting to lose its grip on reality. Suddenly, an emergency signal is received. It's a five year old girl who's parents have both died of the Italian flu. Unable to operate the radio properly, she concludes that she is alone and uses her father's handgun to do herself in. The polar team can only listen, unable to do anything at all to stop her. Tasano, who had been operating the radio and attempting to talk with her, begins to go mad and has to be restrained by his colleagues.

In the United States, the government is finally made fully aware of their involvement in the situation: they created the virus. Garland, himself not knowing the extent of involvement, tries to cover for the operation. Senator Barkley (Vaughn) brings to light new evidence in regards to it, and Colonel Rankin, responsible for the operation, is finally called out for his actions and relieved of command. A last ditch effort is made to create a vaccine and the scientist who knows the most about MM-88 (thrown in the loony bin earlier) is finally released for the cause. The president makes a grand blunder here, however, in insisting that the project to produce a vaccine be kept top secret, thus considerably limiting the number of personnel who could work towards creating it. Meanwhile, General Garland continues ranting about how necessary it is to activate the A.R.S.

By September of 1982, millions are dead in the largest cities worldwide: 7.4 million in New York, 6.9 million in London, 2.3 million in Paris, another 2.9 million in Rome, 7.8 million in Moscow, and 10 million in Tokyo. The hospitals are piled with corpses, the streets littered with the remnants of what, just a few months prior, had been a thriving city. Yoshimizu's girlfriend finds Tasano's son alive, hidden away by his now dead mother. In the midst of the total destruction of civilization as we know it, she takes the child to sea in a motorboat. Forcing him to eat sleeping pills while she devours hand fulls herself, she tells him they are going to find his father. Tasano, tormented by nightmares of his child calling out to him, grabs up what pictures he has of him and flees into the Antarctic wasteland, never to be seen again.

In the United States the last ditch effort to create a vaccine has failed, the scientist helming the project is dead, and most of the government is dead or dying as well. The President reminisces a bit about his years in office while Senator Barkley makes dry jokes about the possibility of snow. It is here that the President remembers that the Italian Flu is incapacitated at temperatures below -10 C. Working on a hunch, he contacts Palmer Station, an Antarctic base helmed by the United States. He orders them to stay put, to allow no one to enter, and to make the best of what they have as they are soon to be the only survivors left. Barkley dies, and General Garland enters just as the President is about to follow suit. He takes his moment of opportunity and authorizes the activation of the A.R.S., then heads to the bunker to activate the doomsday machine (as though there needed to be one at this point), cackling all the while as television monitors show the warheads arming.

The synopsis above covers only the first hour and ten minutes of the film, and even that only sparingly. To say that there is a lot of story to FUKKATSU NO HI would be a gross understatement. The second half of the film, in particular, is so full of characters and plot twists that, even with a full running time of 156 minutes to dedicate to them, that its easy to become lost in the mix. All of this is cast aside after the 2 hour and 19 minute point: the world dies again in a final nuclear conflagration and the remaining running time is spent following Yoshizumi on his years long trek from Washington D.C. to the tip of South America to find his beloved Marit (played by a beautiful Olivia Hussey, but whose character I didn't even get to cover in the above synopsis).

The above goes a short distance towards explaining FUKKATSU NO HI's largest problem as a film. Long, tedious, and difficult to follow at times due to the shear number of characters involved, it suffers the same issues as many of America's disaster films - too many characters given far too little time to be anything other than simple stereotypes. Only Yoshizumi can be followed throughout, as his introduction is early in the film and both the English and Japanese film sequences work to expand his character. Aside from him the majority of the fine cast are reduced to so much furniture. Another issue is the melodrama of it all - while the Japanese sequences in the first half of the film are superbly done and wonderfully effective, the majority of the film is dedicated to bloated American scenes in which dialogue seems consistently forced and the characters prod the convoluted middle-plot along with little natural linear momentum.

That's not to say that the film itself isn't entirely misspent. The aforementioned Japanese scenes, few as they may be, are very well done and the ten minutes devoted to Yoshizumi's trek southward at the film's conclusion is breathtakingly beautiful. Also working for the film at many times is the grand scope of it all - Fukasaku spared no expense in making the film. From renting a real nuclear submarine (as opposed to resorting to the model work typical in both American and Japanese films from this time period) to the preponderance for location shooting around the world, the first half of the film, in particular, remains quite effective. Sadly, a large portion of the second half is lost in the mix as the various surviving Arctic factions bicker, complain, and eventually come to terms with one another just before being nearly completely obliterated.

The film fares considerably worse in its several foreign incarnations. The cut released theatrically in America is reduced by nearly 50 minutes - the first thing to go being the majority of the Japanese sequences, making the first half of the film almost incomprehensible and the second half quite superfluous. The character of Yoshizumi doesn't crop up until the latter half of the film, leaving this version without a main character to focus on for almost its entire running time. This version, in various recut forms and under the title VIRUS, has been a staple of bargain bin DVD and VHS companies for years. Shown cropped to 4:3 from its original 1.85:1 - a change that destroys much of the beautiful composition work - and typically in very substandard quality, these releases were the only way to see the film in the United states for years. This gross mistake on the part of distributors has caused many people who have viewed the film to consider it quite worse than it honestly is.

All told, FUKKATSU NO HI in its original form is much better than most will give it credit for - it's certainly head and feet above its international cut. The well known cast, while not really at the top of their game, pull off their parts with considerable enjoyability and the overall direction provided by Fukasaku is more than serviceable with many scenes proving to be quite well done (my personal favorite is the Japanese segment detailing Japan's descent into martial law as the virus spreads through the country). Not a bad film, but certainly not one of the best, I can recommend FUKKATSU NO HI to viewers with whom other disaster films sit well.