In the next of my posts about movies which I studied for my article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?“, I am writing about Jishin Retto (地震列島) (Kenjiro Ohmori, 1980), also known as ‘Earthquake Archipelago‘, ‘Deathquake’ and ‘Megaforce 7.9’ in English. Given that Japan experiences frequent earthquakes, including major ones, and the long history of disaster movies, it is no surprise that there are some that deal with Japan dealing with huge deadly earthquakes. As much as anything it is a chance to show off what, at the time, were state of the art special effects.
A summary about the movie on IMDb is as follows.
Seizmologist Hoichi loses touch with his family when he predicts that there will be an earthquake in Tokyo of greater magnitude than the one in 1923, which his father predicted. Because of this he starts seeing another woman, who already has a boyfriend. Hoichi’s wife wants to meet her before she will grant a divorce. Eventually, the earthquake he predicted does come, which changes all relationships and exemplifies the character of the Japanese.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080962/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
The movie has a relatively low rating on IMDb and I suspect that this could be due to a number of factors. First, while it was start of the art special effects back in 1980s and was done using the extensive experience of a film studio that had churned out many disaster movies in the 1970s, by the time IMDb came around and people could access the movie via the Internet, the special effects look less special. Second, there could also be cultural issues relating to how a Japanese disaster movie is received globally. These international issues were one of those which I discussed within my article.
Looking at the revised list of conventions that I developed as part of my article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?“, Jishin Retto has 15 out of 17.
Christopher P. Hood 
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