Nihon Chinbotsu (heading OT)

[Jim Harper]

Curiously enough, I found a 1976 English translation of the Sakyo Komatsu novel at a car boot sale last weekend, to my absolute surprise. I apologize for stepping away from the realm of film temporarily, but does anyone know which of his other works have been translated into English? Patrick Macias mentions one of his short stories in TokyoScope', but I'm guessing that hasn't been translated yet.
   
  Jim Harper.

Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu> wrote:
  There are two films picking up serious advertising real estate in Japan right now. One is Geto Monogatari, a Ghibli film directed by Miyazaki Hayao's son (father dissed the film, making for good old-fashioned melodrama). The other is Nihon Chinbotsu, a adaption/remake of the 1973 novel/movie. Mark Schilling has a review in Japan Focus this week:   

  "Nippon Chinbotsu" gets right down to business from its first scene, with a massive earthquake that reduces the city of Numazu to rubble. The film, however, lacks the headlong momentum of Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds," another recent film with an apocalyptic theme (if with eruptions of space monsters, not lava). Instead, the narrative follows the stop-and-start pattern of many a 70s disaster movie -- frequently slowing to a halt for fraught meetings and partings, in spaces that are islands apart from the destruction raining down outside..."Nippon Chinbotsu" offers enough earthquakes, eruptions and general havoc to keep disaster fans happy, even if the CG lava flows aren't quite up to Hollywood snuff. For me, though, the film's brand of soft nationalism held more interest, No one sings "Kimigayo" as yet another cultural landmark falls to rubble, but most of the good characters opt to stay with Dainippon until the bitter (or rather salty) end.
  

  Full review: http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2188
  

  Markus



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