Haunting, forgotten masterpiece

The world ends twice in Kinji Fukasaku's forgotten epic, first with a whimper and then with a bang.

I just watched the full Japanese version of the movie that comes in the Sonny Chiba Action Pack DVD, and I'm blown away. All the extra footage really fleshes out the characters more, gives the tragedy more impact, and explains plot twists better. The chopped-up US cut is really quite American-centric, but the Japanese cut focuses more on Yoshizumi. His story is very poignant and we get to see more of his background, which explains his motivations later in the film. Everything just makes more sense in the longer cut. This movie isn't Michael Bay's Armageddon where the end of the world is treated with great levity, this movie is quite bleak, but necessarily so. Parts reminded me of Nevil Shute's "The Beach", Stephen King's "The Stand" and even the apocalyptic feel of John Carpenter's "The Thing."

The US cut floating around is crudely cropped to 4:3 pan and scan and the picture and sound quality are terrible - scratchy, dirty, grainy and murky. The full cut is a beautiful anamorphic widescreen transfer with crystal-clear sound. The sweeping orchestral music sounds really majestic on the new DVD, whereas it sounded muddy and tinny on the US cut.

I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say that the full Japanese cut is one of the best films of the 1980s. Sure, it has its flaws and is a little dated, but Fukasaku's direction is truly elegant and some of the scenes are just unforgettable, particularly in the final segment of the film where Yoshizumi literally walks across the entire length of the Americas to find his lost love. Stunning stuff. I'm gonna tell as many movie buffs as I can about this movie because it really deserves to be seen in its full glory.