TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Ginger
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
MartinHafer
"The World Sinks Except Japan" is set in the near future. It begins with the United States being destroyed by Earthquakes and floods--and millions of refugees pour into Europe, Australia and Asia. Then, one-by-one, the rest of the nations of the world suffer the same fate...except for Japan. As a result, the country is inundated with immigrants--and the Japanese soon get sick of all these poor freeloaders.After having seen "The World Sinks Except Japan", I think it was a comedy--a parody of sorts. However, I am not really sure. Does it make fun of the old xenophobic Japan of the WWII era or is it really just a nasty xenophobic flick? I am not sure...and that alone make this a movie that isn't super-satisfying. However, whether it's a joke or not, you really can't help but notice that it's incredibly poorly made. Now part of this could be part of some joke (that I didn't at all understand) but seeing incredibly broad overacting, 'American' actors who can barely speak English at all (you'd think they'd hire more real Americans or actors who could at least approximate the language) and some tacky references (such as making Chinese and Korean leaders lapdogs of the Japanese in the movie--pretty tacky when you think about history and the 1930s) all made me just think the film was bad...and a bit dull to boot.
ebiros2
This movie is based on a short novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui that parodied a much more authoritative novel done by Sakyo Komatsu which depicted the sinking of Japan into the mantle.Yasutaka Tsutsui is famous for writing novels lampooning real life situations such as Nihon Apachi Zoku (Apaches in Japan). He's also capable of writing much more serious sci-fi such as the famous "Girl who leaped through time" (Toki o kakeru shojo). This movie is based on a short novel that was only about 10 pages long which was a parody of the more famous "Nihon Chinbotsu" (Japan Sinks) by Sakyo Komatsu. It was meant to be a tongue in cheek satire, and even in the original novel, the title "Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu" , words Nihon and Chinbotsu was printed in a large font and "Igai Zenbu" was printed in a tiny font making sure that people understood the authors intent. When this novel first came out, Frank Sinatra was still alive, and at the opening scene he's the one who's singing in a cabaret in Tokyo. The novel itself wasn't meant to be high quality, and it had no artistic value. They've expanded on the story and made it into a movie. The original novel wasn't any masterpiece, and the movie couldn't save it from its trashy origin. I'm not sure how Tsutsui himself views this movie as I'm sure he wrote the thing in few hours or at most few days just to muse himself.Best skip this one and not take it too seriously even if you have the opportunity to see it.
nyshyguy84
Seriously this is supposed to be a parody of the sinking of japan. Well parodies are supposed to be funny and this sure as hell wasn't. The steriotypes were not funny and at times either mind numbingly stupid or just plain offensive. The story and plot if their is even supposed to be one, was hardly followed through and when it was over i was left pondering if the director really wanted this to be a parody or just some dumb drama flick, with dumb special effects and even dumber acting And i'm still wondering who the hell some of these no name actors who played the foreigners came from, since I've never seen them before in any movie till now. I hope this doesn't become a trend now in Japanese cinema where they have to rely on cheesy special effects and no actual story to make their films watchable. Its not working to well for Hollywood after all. Oh yeah and i absolutely despised the Japanese nationalism in this flick. Maybe they weren't taking it seriously in japan, but i think to a lot of non Japanese your gonna be very offended by some of the things they say and do to the foreign refugees in this film. Personally i think japan is setting itself up to be hated with films like these.Overall an incredible waste of time to watch.
CountZero313
Let's get the bottom line out of the way first: Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu isn't funny. Given the fame and high profile of the film this is parodying, it is a brilliant idea with huge comic potential. Tragically, the execution fails to mine even a fraction of that potential. I smiled at the "gaijin report," weather forecast-style reporting of gaijin 'fronts' around the country. The Chinese and Korean leaders reduced to vaudeville performing sidekicks of the Japanese PM was mildly amusing - ditto their revenge at the end of the film. I came to the film expecting outrageous laugh-out-loud moments but barely managed a titter. In a film like this, we expect the low production value, cheesy effects, ham-fisted acting and nondescript casting. We put up with them in the hope that all the effort has gone into the script. Admirably, the film takes pot-shots at both gaijin and Japanese pretensions. Unfortunately, at the risk of repeating myself, it just isn't funny. In fact, most of the time it is downright boring. All in all, a missed opportunity.
