ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki Special effects and pyrotechnics are the only virtues in this otherwise wholly forgettable little Japanese disaster flick, about a monstrous-sized earthquake occurring in Japan. First 45-minutes are little more than melodramatics between geologist and his family, and his possible, impending divorce, and the disgrace of his family's name. He believes a major earthquake will strike Japan in the very near future, but is not believed. The film eventually comes alive in a well done special effects sequence where a Japanese city is destroyed (or a miniature version of it, anyway) and buildings crumble, cars crash, cameras shake, and, in my opinion, a well-staged plane crashes while coming in for a landing, the city is thrown into chaos and panics when they realise he was unfortunately correct. These scenes are, in my mind anyway, quite well done and impressive, the only reason to search for this film, really, but it is a LONG wait for them. I'm rewatching this and writing a review of this only couple of days after the 9.0 earthquake occurred in Japan, so we're finding out, in real life, what the Japanese and he rest of the world's response would be to just such an event. Or is that what full and complete 127-minute version of the film deals with? Perhaps that improves the American 96-minute version, with more miniature effects and a more complete ending? Or was that just more soap opera baloney in the first scenes? In the America version, the ending also probably only makes sense to people who are aware of the Japanese veneration of suicide.

gavin6942 Tokyo has not seen an earthquake over 5.0 in a long time (1923), so this generation has gone soft. What will they do when hit by a 7.9 quake? Because one is projected to happen within one month...Directed by Kenjiro Ohmori, who is not even known in Japan for anything.The Fortune 5 DVD was apparently copied from VHS, with the jumpy frames and snow. The dubbing is what you might expect. Sometimes called "Earthquake 7.9" and other times "Megaforce 7.9" or even "Deathquake".There is a scene where they purposely crash cars head-on into each other, in order to design a fireproof automobile. Why? Because "in an earthquake, cars will burn first". And in an earthquake, it is fire that kills, not the shaking.There are some interesting Japanese cultural aspects, with a focus on disgrace of a family name, rather than an individual -- the prediction of an earthquake is a big deal, it seems.

Woodyanders Brash and passionate young seismologist Yoichi Kawazu (well played by Hiroshi Katsuno) tries to warn folks about a massive earthquake that's going to hit Tokyo, Japan, but both the scientific community and the local politicians laugh him off as a histrionic phony until the big one hits. Director Kenjiro Omori and screenwriter Kaneto Shindro unfortunately allow the heavy-handed first half of this film to get bogged down in extremely mushy and pretty tedious soap opera nonsense about Yoichi's messed-up love life and dysfunctional family. Luckily, this picture starts seriously cooking once the earthquake occurs: glass shatters, buildings topple, planes crash, people fall out of high-rise windows to their deaths, fires break out all over the city, and a flood caused by a broken dam threatens to drown a handful of hapless individuals trapped in an underground subway tunnel. The pace and tension really kick in at this point, thereby resulting in a suitably exciting and suspenseful nail-biter. Moreover, the cast all give solid performances and the dubbing is acceptable. Rokuro Nishigaki's crisp cinematography, the grimly serious tone, and Toshiaki Tsushima's stirring full-bore orchestral score are all up to speed as well. The special effects are both nifty and impressive. So despite a flawed and ponderous first half, this movie overall still rates as a sound and enjoyable disaster feature.

Angel Meiru I remember seeing the International version of "DeathQuake", as released by the good folks at Toho, in a Science class at my High School Jr. year, and boy, it is still stuck on me for that long. It is kinda like Japan's answer to an Irwin Allen film.It starts out with a seismic wave researcher, whom predicted the next Tokyo/Yokohama earthquake, just like his psychic great-grandfather did in 1923. Hardly anyone believes him, until it is too late. The intensity of the Earthquake (in the int. version, it is said to be magnitude 10!) is probably the most intense of any disaster film. We could only imagine this happening and pray for no earthquake that intense to hit anywhere ever again.*SPOILER* Probably the most touching and personal favorite scene is where the researcher and other main characters rescues a little girl from being crushed by flaming debris. How can that not tug your heartstrings?*END OF SPOILER*