Virus (1980)

I would hope for your own sake that if you ever get a lot of money that you don't go and lose your mind.

You know how it is: some people get millions of dollars and, not having a plan as to how to correctly use it, lose all common sense and go 200% completely bonkers.

Some will spend it all on real estate and hair products (Donald Trump), some will pour their money into skydiving nude from outer space (Richard Branson), others will bankroll a musical/acting career for their girlfriend who has no talent whatsoever (William Randolph Hearst), then there are those who want to make two-fisted Westerns that focus instead on the two breasts of Jane Russell (Howard Hughes).

(...okay, actually I'll go along with the last one. Good job, Howard.)

So we now come to the nut job mentality of Haruki Kadokawa. Who? Why, he was the young heir to the Kadokawa Shoten publishing empire of Japan and had prestige, honor and money to his name. And apparently, he was one of those guys who, when he had a bad idea, seemed to have a lot of hangers-on and Asian butt-kissers to support his actions, egg him on, give words of encouragement, that kind of thing. Must be nice.

Anyway, one day Haruki apparently was going through his sock drawer, moved a pair of argyles and - WHOA! There was sixteen million bucks just lying there! Huh...must've stashed it for a rainy day then forgot about it or something. So hey: $16 million in mad money to do anything you want with, Haruki. Cool.

So put yourself in his shoes: it's the late Seventies, you have 16 million cold hard United States dollars to do anything you want with, and the world's there waiting for you to do something with it. Anything. What would you do?

Well, lessee. You could:

* get backstage all-access to every KISS concert from now to at least 1994
* update your polyester wardrobe
* invest in 20th Century Fox stock, since they seem to be on the upswing what with that George Lucas kid's new film and all
* fill your swimming pool with sushi and dive in

Or, you could always:

* make a movie

Why is it that so many people, when they think they have enough money to do so, want to make a movie? I know, money usually isn't a factor when it comes to realizing your cinematic dreams - believe me, I know.

Yet, here was Haruki with all this sock drawer money, ready to make a movie. A big movie.

Keep in mind that Heaven's Gate was still being made, and $16 million was a pretty huge budget for any film at this time, let alone a Japanese film. We wouldn't get to the $100 million per-movie budget average till the Nineties (thanks a lot, Jimmy Cameron). But alright then: $16 million. For a movie. But what kind of movie would $16 million get us?

How about a huge science fiction epic with spaceships and alien worlds? Maybe a boisterous, loud, all-out comedy? The Godzilla movie to end all Godzilla movies?

How about an end-of-the-world movie where death, desolation and despair all headline and a lot of your budget is spent on the cast alone?

Hel-lo, box office.

Alright, what Haruki ended up getting for his money was the film Virus (named Fukkatsu no hi in its native Land of the Rising Sun, and also came with about seven other alternate titles - shocked?), based on a book, of all things (by novelist Sakyo Komatsu) and directed by no less a director than Kinji Fukasaku. And if Fukasaku's name sounds familiar, it should; he's only the director of such classics to our cultured sensibilities as Message From Space, Legend Of Eight Samurai, the Japanese segments of Tora! Tora! Tora! and Battle Royales I and II. Just the man you want to lens your big deal, big budget film. Sheesh....

But as you're about to find out, Virus has more going against it than a schlocky director.

Here we have our plot: In East Germany, a scientist has been bribed by American agents to provide a sample of the deadly virus developed by the East German government for a reward of 50,000 pounds. East German soldiers break into the clandestine meeting and shoot the German scientist but the CIA agents manage to escape in a plane, which crashes into the side of a mountain during a violent storm and the deadly virus is released. Highly potent and spread atmospherically, the virus infects the world with staggering death tolls for every major city in the world.

The actions leaps back and forth between continents; starting in America where United States President Richardson (Glenn Ford) and Senator Barkley (Robert Vaughn) and other high-ranking officials observe the cataclysmic events across the world as the virus spreads, and they deal with treachery within from their own military.

In Japan, the dead litter the streets and the dying clutter already-packed hospitals begging for treatment.

Meanwhile, UK Nuclear Submarine Nereid, headed by Captain McCloud (Chuck Connors), make it to Antarctica, where cold temperatures negate the spread of the virus. Only 855 men and 8 women in the entire world survive here as General Rankin (Henry Silva) determines that the viral onslaught, manufactured by the Soviets, must be struck down by them and is intent on activating a nuclear attack system.

Also meanwhile, two men in Antarctica are injected with an experimental antidote to protect them from the virus. These men - Doctor Shûzô Yoshizumi (Masao Kusakari) and military Major Carter (Bo Svenson) - set out to avert a further cataclysm before nuclear disaster eradicates the remainder of the earth.

Okay, first of all, what a cast! I already mentioned Ford, Vaughn, Silva, Connors and Svenson, but we also have George Kennedy, Olivia Hussey, Edward James Olmos, Japanese superstar Sonny Chiba and some other Japanese actors whom I'm sure are more or less well-known in their homeland. Good for them, you know - but as far as a worldwide presence, probably not so much so.

There is a problem here that acting - no matter how good - can overcome. Director Fukasaku co-wrote a turgid script with Kôji Takada and Gregory Knapp from an equally turgid novel by Sakyo Komatsu that pretty much paints from a palette of blacks and grays over an already dingy canvas of despair. Even with sterling direction and bright visuals, nothing can overcome the absolute and complete despair evident from first frame to last. I know, I can't give away anything about the final minutes of the film but let's just say that the movie's tagline ("The Entire World Is A Graveyard") doesn't get one in the mood for anything more than if they remade Old Yeller, only with the dog getting nuked.

The acting suffers, though, because we are dealing with two different schools of acting fighting against each other for supremacy during the running time. Japanese cinema is famous for the loud, almost histrionic level of acting employed during dramatic highlights. You can see this in just about any example of Japanese cinema to be found. However, most of the cast is made up of some of the most laid-back actors ever to grace the screen. I've never seen Glenn Ford scream, have you? How about Robert Vaughn? Bo Svenson, maybe - a little? Once? When you see them stand alongside and try to match the level of vein-bulging, screeching hysterical world-ending dramatic fear embodied by their Asian counterparts, it's like watching an acting class where you're not sure if there's a teacher.

There are some good moments here and there: Ford has some touching scenes embodied in lone monologues, Svenson does his stoic, laconic best as a man of few words - most of them tough talk, and Silva does his patented crazy authority figure for the umpteenth time. It is Kusakari, though, who ends up carrying the movie as a tortured man who has lost loved ones and his own identity in a world that itself is in its death throes. These are standout moments however, in a film where you cannot be bothered with the details and are instead ticking off the stereotyped situations - Cold War paranoia, sweaty faces screaming accusations, fevered races against time, man's humanity against man - to really appreciate anything but the fact that crowds of people are running around, then dropping like flies.

Is Virus at least thought-provoking? Kind of, but in a way that's been meditated on long before this in 1971's The Andromeda Strain, and long since in 1995's Twelve Monkeys. And certainly we've been treated to nuclear Armageddon more effectively in the 1983 made-for-TV movie The Day After and the 1984 British TV movie Threads. The fact of the matter is that viral warfare is just not that shocking a fact, neither is the use of nuclear weaponry. They're there and we've got to control not only them but the idiots in charge of them.

As far as Virus is concerned, though, what's the use? The world's gonna end anyway and there isn't really much sense in trying to fend off the inevitable. Hell, we even get an ending theme written and performed by no less than Janis Ian - one of the most damned depressing singers ever to trudge this muddy, doomed ball of grief and despair we call earth.

Jeez, why not pass everybody in the audience straight razors while you're at it??

Needless to say, this $16 million endeavor did NOT earn back its budget. In fact, I think producer Haruki Kadokawa realized he'd made a mistake about as big as Pink Lady and Jeff and instead had it sold directly to television...

See that; this movie did so badly that it didn't even get to video first.

...where its original 156-minute running time was pared down to 108 minutes. Did it help? No; apparently we're missing a love story here, Japanese drama there, dialogue, trekking through barren wastelands and lots of other stuff that may just as well have given us something more than what we have.

I, myself, have seen BOTH versions of this movie - long and short. Does it make a difference which one YOU see? Not really; the longer one does have a kinda-sorta borderline happier ending but you still have to sludge through a lot of death and desolation to get to it...and there's still Janis Ian to deal with.

So is Virus worth the money, time and effort it took to get it made? Hate to break it to Kadokawa, but he should have went with the KISS backstage passes instead. A movie he lavished so much time and money on ended up not only unloved and unwanted but truncated and shunted off to empty timeslots on WGN.

Like I said in the beginning, if you ever get a lot of money and decide to make your own movie, I hope you don't go off the tracks and lose every sense the good Lord gave you. After all, vision is one thing, being blinded by what you can get for your money is another.

Kadokawa got blinded by $16 million when he decided to make a disaster movie, but it also proved that a movie like Virus didn't need to cost a lot of money to be as bad as it was.

This may not be the end of the world as we know it but, after seeing Virus, you won't feel fine.