As a single-minded seismologist posted in Antarctica who predicts the disastrous DC quake, Yoshizumi embodies the willful blindness and debasement of humans in the Cold War era: like those who create and deploy the MM-88 virus and the nuclear weapons that threaten annihilation, he is obsessively selfish and indifferently cruel, but he ultimately discovers how to feel empathy and to heal – and in doing so demonstrates the strength, endurance, and resiliency not only of humanity but also of post-World War II Japan. The coincidences and exaggerated emotions of melodrama, rather than rationally presented principles of science, politics, or psychology, are the engine of Virus: humankind, represented by Yoshizumi, provokes relentless disaster but also discovers love and redemption against overwhelming odds.
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Introduction
Perhaps no film ever produced has embraced the melodrama of apocalypse more fervently than Virus: Day of Resurrection (1980), directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Based on a 1964 novel by Sakyo Komatsu, a source with which the film takes considerable creative license, Virus boldly confronts Cold War anxieties of the mid-twentieth century and their implications for global survival. When MM-88, a terrifying lab-created disease deadly to all vertebrate life, is stolen and accidentally released, the world’s population is brutally decimated. The only safe spaces that remain are in the coldest areas of the planet, where the germ is inactive. Thus, Antarctica, with its population of 855 men and 8 women assigned to scientific research facilities scattered around the continent, becomes the last outpost of civilization. The fragile new order that they establish is soon threatened when a seismologist predicts that a huge earthquake will hit Washington, DC. Though earth’s survivors are far from the epicenter, military officers quickly realize that the quake will be strong enough to trigger the ARS, or “Automatic Reaction System,” created by the Americans and Soviets in their zeal to defeat one another, even unto doomsday. The ARS will release nuclear missiles intended to destroy the US and USSR – including Antarctica, one of the Soviet Union’s preprogrammed targets. The members of humanity’s last outpost formulate a desperate plan to reach Washington and deactivate the ARS before it can precipitate a second cataclysm.
At the time of its release in 1980, Virus’s budget of $16 million made it the most expensive Japanese film created to date. As Tony Williams explains in “Doomsday Past, Present, and Future: Kinji Fukasaku’s Virus,” the film was produced by the owner of the firm that had published Komatsu’s novel, Haruki Kadokawa, who became an “Irwin Allen” figure in Japan and “spared no expense in trying to make Virus an international success” (216). Williams claims that Fukasaku, a skilled director who had built his reputation in the yakuza (gangster) genre, had substantial creative control over the project, though a 1983 essay on Fukasaku’s career contends that he was under pressure to produce a box-office hit and therefore delivered a film that “looks like an entry in the disaster genre with its farrago of sub-plots” while failing to “honor the serious questions” about survival and resurrection raised in the original novel (McDonald 28-29). In contrast to this glib dismissal, I will argue that Virus expertly embraces the conventions of 1970s disaster melodramas, which are crucial to a nuanced understanding of its indelible narrative impact.
Disaster films can exist across numerous genres: science fiction, drama, horror, action, and so on. Writing in 1980, Nick Roddick offered the following definition of disaster movies: “a film in which the central pivot or impulse of the narrative [is] provided by a natural or man-made disaster occurring, either without warning or after unheeded warnings, in a setting or environment close enough to the audience’s experience for identification to be possible” (246). Shot across the globe with dialogue in both English and Japanese and American actors in several major roles, Virus is closely aligned with the cycle of disaster films produced in the United States during the 1970s, which featured all-star ensemble casts dealing with the high-stakes drama of both naturally occurring and human-created catastrophes. According to Scott Freer in American Disaster Movies of the 1970s, such films foreground the “tragic pleasure of confronting and containing the Dionysian chaos that threatens to undo the superstructures of high modernity” (3). Freer also asserts that a crucial element of the 1970s cycle was transposing the melodrama of classic Hollywood onto the context of contemporary hazards, beginning with Airport (1970): “The appeal of Airport owed much to the genre innovations of Arthur Hailey’s best-selling 1968 novel: re-energizing melodrama by transposing a Grand Hotel narrative of multiple plotlines onto the site of high modernity: the airport” (31). Virus has an ensemble all-star cast and is fully engaged with the threats of high modernity, including nuclear devastation and biological warfare. But unlike 1970s disaster films, the calamities in Virus are not regionally specific or contained in the limited spaces of burning buildings, sinking ships, or crashing planes.
Peter Brooks has highlighted the hermeneutic power of melodrama as an imaginative mode of heightened dramatization that emphasizes hyperbole, sensationalism, and the manipulation of emotion. “The essential point may be,” he says, “that melodrama . . . refuses to content itself with the repressions, the tonings-down, the half-articulations, the accommodations, and the disappointments of the real” (ix). Melodrama is not a singular genre but rather “a mode of aesthetic articulation distilled from and adaptable across a range of genres, across decades, and across national cultures” (Gledhill xiii) that is critical to disaster films, which employ the melodramatic mode to “highlight urgent political and social issues and to present spectacles of civic and personal conflict, suffering, struggle, resolution, reconciliation and community” that translate “moral legibility into a choreographic alternation between responsibility and response” (Kakoudaki, “Melodrama and Apocalypse,” 312, 317).
Virus is closely engaged with the phenomena of responsibility and response, and as Catherine Russell notes, the melodramatic mode is deeply rooted in Japanese cultural history and “might even be said to dominate Japanese cinema as a kind of metagenre to the same extent that it informs North American narrative film. In fact, emotional intensity is a key attribute of the so-called Japanese ‘character’” (143). Virus: Day of Resurrection amplifies the melodrama of 1970s American disaster films, setting the stage for the unlikely but jubilant “day of resurrection” to which the title refers. Just as Fukasaku reveled in exploring the visceral impact and psychological complexity of over-the-top violence in his now-classic yakuza films, such as the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series (1972-1976), he relished the potential for impassioned excess in a doubly apocalyptic narrative focused on the fatal consequences of Cold War political rivalries and tensions. In a film that he directed and co-wrote, Fukasaku dynamically reinvents and reimagines the original novel, in which characters function largely as undeveloped placeholders who provide scientific and political exposition.
Virus embraces the Grand Hotel approach of an all-star cast and multiple subplots, but at the center of the film is the brazenly sentimental, breathtakingly far-fetched, redemptive journey of its protagonist: Dr. Shûzô Yoshizumi (Masao Kusakari), who ultimately learns that “Life is wonderful.”1 As a single-minded seismologist posted in Antarctica who predicts the disastrous DC quake, Yoshizumi embodies the willful blindness and debasement of humans in the Cold War era: like those who create and deploy the MM-88 virus and the nuclear weapons that threaten annihilation, he is obsessively selfish and indifferently cruel, but he ultimately discovers how to feel empathy and to heal – and in doing so demonstrates the strength, endurance, and resiliency not only of humanity but also of post-World War II Japan. The coincidences and exaggerated emotions of melodrama, rather than rationally presented principles of science, politics, or psychology, are the engine of Virus: humankind, represented by Yoshizumi, provokes relentless disaster but also discovers love and redemption against overwhelming odds.
One Apocalypse Isn’t Enough: Yoshizumi’s Slow Awakening
Before global tragedy strikes, Yoshizumi is an aloof character, an accomplished scientist who abandons his pregnant girlfriend for his research in the frigid climate of Antarctica. He studies earthquakes and regularly employs explosives in his work. Like the virus and the massive tremor that could trigger a release of nuclear missiles, he is a threat – an extension of the opportunism, suspicion, and insensitivity repeatedly exhibited by the characters and countries in this film, and of the Cold War epidemic of ill will, mistrust, and downright indifference that nearly dooms the planet. Williams relates the character of Yoshizumi to director Kinji Fukasaku’s personal history:
If Battle Royale (2000) represents a futuristic version of the “slaughter of the innocents” the director himself witnessed in the closing days of World War Two [sic], Virus is a very relevant companion piece. Although Yoshizumi is not responsible for the world-wide decimation, his initial attitude of alienation, solipsism, and his isolation from those close to him are key elements. . . . His . . . lack of feeling shows him to be allied with the more dangerous character traits of . . . Western figures [who] wish to unleash the forces of destruction in the same way as the American military and political establishment supported the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at a time when Japan was close to surrender. (228)
But as Yoshizumi slowly and painfully acknowledges the beauty and wonder of life, he becomes a manifestation of hope: He volunteers for a suicide mission to disarm the ARS, he is the first person to gain immunity to the virus, and he is reborn in a nuclear blast – echoing his country’s rise from the ashes after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.
The remarkable evolution of Dr. Yoshizumi parallels the world’s fate and is thus both instructive and cautionary. Both are potentially reborn, but only after an enormous toll has been exacted. As we learn in the film’s introduction, Yoshizumi continues to occupy himself with seismological research even after a gruesome pandemic has decimated the global population. Organized with a series of intertitles that situate us in time and space as the film unfolds, Virus: Day of Resurrection opens in December 1983 aboard the British nuclear submarine Nereid as it arrives in Tokyo Bay, where it takes on an air sample and launches a surveillance drone. Looking at the video feed (which is not yet revealed to viewers of the film), Captain McCloud (Chuck Connors) inquires about Yoshizumi’s whereabouts, and learns that he is asleep after working on an earthquake prediction theory all night. “What a crock!” declares one of the crew members derisively. “Worried about a massive disaster, is he?”
The first shot of Yoshizumi in Virus is a medium close-up of him ensconced in his bunk, pencil in hand, his face half obscured by a sheet of calculations as he stares intently at another page in his clipboard (Figure 1). He is not asleep, but his attention is so focused that he is clearly not attuned to the environment around him. When he hears the summons to the control room over the ship’s radio, he startles and knocks all his books and papers to the floor. As he jumps down from his top bunk and gathers his scattered materials, the man trying to sleep in the bunk beneath him, Major Carter (Bo Svenson), rolls his eyes (Figure 2), making his lack of regard for Yoshizumi clear – but also providing an early hint of their eventual partnership and its significance to the film’s message of redemption.
Figure 1: Despite an apocalypse, Dr. Shûzô Yoshizumi remains absorbed in his seismological research.
Figure 2: Major Carter has little patience for the clumsy Yoshizumi, his bunkmate.
Arriving in the control room, Yoshizumi, as the only Japanese person aboard the submarine, is directed to the video screen and, overwhelmed, drops to his knees at what he sees, tears welling up in his eyes (Figure 3). Death, decay, and destruction are everywhere. A particularly grisly shot of a skeletal mother lying dead next to the equally ghastly remains of a child in a stroller cues an audio flashback for Yoshizumi: In Japanese, a resonant female voice announces, “I’m pregnant.” In the next shot, a visual flashback, a woman with long black hair peers directly into the camera and observes, “But it’s of no matter to you.” After a cross dissolve to another close-up of her, she breathes “Sayonara” and turns away, her dark hair flowing behind her. Back in the submarine, Yoshizumi reacts to this memory, registering strong remorse. But a new voice cuts in; this time it is Major Carter, who is American. “On a more positive note, gang,” he drawls, addressing the crew assembled in the control room as Yoshizumi looks up at him, “Let’s not get so damn heavy about this. The Japanese seem to have licked their smog problem at last.”
Figure 3: Aboard the submarine, Yoshizumi reacts to devastation in Tokyo.
Less than four minutes into an epic two-hour and thirty-six-minute film, the foundation has been laid for a grand saga of transformation. The protagonist weeps in response to the enormous human toll of the tragedy (all of Tokyo appears gone) and to personal loss (his flashbacks to the mysterious, accusatory woman). Yoshizumi appears sensitive and sincere, but we soon realize that although he may not shed crocodile tears, he still has much to sacrifice and learn before he can be truly redeemed. In her seminal 1965 essay “The Imagination of Disaster,” Susan Sontag notes, “Modern historical reality has greatly enlarged the imagination of disaster, and the protagonists – perhaps by the very nature of what is visited upon them – no longer seem wholly innocent” (193). Major Carter’s statement about Tokyo is intemperate and deliberately vicious, worthy of the most stereotyped moustache-twirling villains of melodrama. Strategically, however, over the course of its narrative Virus problematizes our assumptions about both characters: the sorrowful Yoshizumi is not a benign victim and the brutish Carter is not simply a one-dimensional jackass. Their agonizing journeys toward empathy, toward a recognition of the inherent value of life, ultimately earn humanity an opportunity to be reborn.
The introduction to the film, which is set nearly two years after the virus begins its deadly circulation, foregrounds and foreshadows the aesthetic of excess that is so vital to the doubly apocalyptic vision of Virus, which is revealed through unbelievable coincidences and overwrought reactions that push survivors to the razor’s edge before granting them a reprieve from complete obliteration. Yoshizumi’s military compatriots later realize that his preoccupation with earthquake prediction, something that they view as a distraction from their desperate situation, has inadvertently alerted them to imminent danger and may in fact give them time to reach Washington, DC, and deactivate the Automatic Reaction System (ARS) before immense seismic activity will trigger the release of nuclear weapons across the globe.
Surrogate Fatherhood – and a Fragile but Flawed Order Emerges
The impact of the first apocalypse on Yoshizumi, though blunted because he is securely ensconced in Antarctica as it ravages the world, is a fundamental component of his evolution. The growth he experiences as he responds to both remote and proximate crises prepares him for the even more arduous challenges he will endure once he volunteers for the Washington, DC, suicide mission to deactivate the ARS. The foundation of that progress is his burgeoning emotional vulnerability and his slowly dawning realization that nothing is more precious than life.
After spending several minutes introducing us to the aftermath of the pandemic aboard the Nereid, Virus allows us to witness its spread, an arc that occupies more than half of the film’s running time. Then at just over ninety minutes into the film, we return to the present, December 1983, when the survivors will soon face the threat of a second wave of extermination (Figure 4). The time frame for MM-88, the eponymous “virus” of the film’s title, to run its course from first appearance to the obliteration of humankind is less than one year, from February to November 1982. By May 1982, researchers at Showa Station, the Japanese post in Antarctica, are very concerned about news reports of a dangerous “Italian flu” sweeping the earth, but their government urges calm. As viewers, we have been privy to a rogue scientist’s explanation of the origin and action of MM-88, a bioweapon that was engineered by an American geneticist, stolen by enemy agents, and accidentally released. “Essentially,” the scientist says, “it is a mimic. A mimic attaches itself to existing viruses such as polio, influenza, et cetera, increasing both the toxicity level and the reproductive level of the host disease.” We also learn that MM-88 is inactive under extremely low temperatures, which is what accounts for Antarctica being safe from the threat of infection. Because information regarding the mechanism and action of MM-88 is kept top secret within a very limited circle of military, political, and scientific personnel, effective strategies for identifying and combatting the virus are nearly impossible to develop. Thus, intense paranoia and obsessive national loyalty catalyze and escalate the process of extinction.
Figure 4: A breakdown of the VIRUS narrative, including running times for each major segment of the film.
Similarly, while Yoshizumi remains indifferent, humanity has no hope. In his area of scientific expertise, seismology, he eschews close attachments and literally blows stuff up – using explosives to simulate earthquake activity. His blind devotion to his incendiary profession above all else emulates the arrogant, alienating politics of the Cold War era. At least twice during the film, Yoshizumi remembers his final encounters with his girlfriend, Noriko (Yumi Takigawa), which take place before any evidence of the virus appears. Through flashbacks, we learn that she breaks up with him when he responds to her pregnancy announcement with awkward silence. To save face, she immediately claims that she is lying about the baby but asserts that Yoshizumi would never alter his plans to go to Antarctica, anyway, no matter what happened to her. “Earthquakes and the South Pole are all you care about,” she declares, and he readily concurs. On the day that his ship leaves for the research mission, Noriko unexpectedly comes to bid him good-bye. She reiterates that he need not concern himself with her “false” pregnancy. “In truth,” she concludes, “I wanted to see you off with a smile. Go in good health” (Figure 5). The feigned cheerfulness of her statement foreshadows the poignant circumstance that Yoshizumi’s location at the South Pole protects him from the lethal virus that later takes her life and the life of her baby.
Figure 5: Noriko’s heavily ironic parting message to Yoshizumi; she and her unborn child will soon die of the virus.
As the pandemic unfolds, key scenes of emotional excess push Yoshizumi toward greater compassion, especially in terms of mourning Noriko and the child that the two would have shared. His emergence as a surrogate father signals potential healing, as a delicate (though flawed) system of governance is established in Antarctica. Virus continually foregrounds the importance of children to any meaningful future, and a pivotal moment for Yoshizumi comes when he keenly feels the predicament of a five-year-old American boy, Toby, who radios for help when his parents perish and he is left completely alone.
The Toby scene can be dismissed as hyperbolic, extraneous, and/or irrelevant, especially if fans categorize Virus solely as an apocalyptic or pandemic film. For example, a forty-five-minute podcast analysis of Virus published on YouTube in 2014 dismisses the scene as “ridiculous” and “melodramatic.” But as a 1970s disaster film, Virus depends on the melodrama of human relationships for its narrative impact, and in that context the Toby incident is a critical turning point for Yoshizumi. “The spectacle, moral polarisation and dramatic reversals for which melodrama is so often criticised serve the purpose of clarification, identification and palpable demonstration of repressed ‘ethical and psychic’ forces,” notes Christine Gledhill (30). Viewers may react dismissively because Toby is not realistically or credibly presented as a young child. He never appears on-screen, speaks in an artificial singsong voice, and has a mastery of reportage that would be highly unlikely for a five-year-old boy; Toby functions purely as a melodramatic device to catalyze Yoshizumi’s redemption.
An intertitle right before this vital three-minute scene announces that it is now August 1982, and MM-88 has exacted a massive death toll. The radio operator at Showa Station, Yasuo Tatsuno (Tsunehiko Watase), who is Yoshizumi’s friend (and whose wife Yoshiko introduced Yoshizumi to his girlfriend, Noriko), repeatedly tries to reach someone – anyone – outside Antarctica. The airwaves have been completely silent for more than a week. The scene consists of multiple group shots of men gathered around Tatsuno, waiting anxiously and reacting to what they learn. This visual strategy of “assembling for the apocalypse,” evident throughout the film, suggests that humans can only survive by pulling together. Tatsuno, a loving husband and father to a young son, Akira, is distraught as he tensely awaits news of his family. “It’s no use!” he screams in despair, pounding the communications console with his fist and flinging himself away to grab a nearby teapot as he takes a careless swig from its spout. “How could Japan be ruined in just three months?!” he demands of the other nine men in the room, who include Yoshizumi. The tension and explosive power of the scene are immediately apparent, even before the real action begins.
The sound of static interrupts and a young voice says, “Hello?” Instantly, Tatsuno and the men present turn eagerly toward the radio, leaning in expectantly. Yoshizumi’s reaction identifies him as an outlier. After a beat, he also joins the cluster of his colleagues, but he is in the background, nearly out of the top edge of the frame, his presence obscured by another man’s head (Figure 6). And as the camera zooms in, Yoshizumi is cut out entirely – at least initially. “Hello? Hello? Can anybody hear me? My name is Toby Anderson,” cries a thin, high-pitched voice. The framing is close on Tatsuno as he responds. “Toby, I hear you, I hear you!” Toby explains that he is outside of Santa Fe, and that he is using “Daddy’s radio.” The anguished men at Showa Station soon realize that Toby can’t hear them because he doesn’t entirely understand how to operate his device. “It’s no use!” wails Tatsuno, shoving aside the microphone stand. “He’s holding down the mic button!” Tatsuno instructs Toby to let go of the mic switch after he speaks, but of course his commands do not reach Toby, who registers only silence. Just as the world clamors for order, support, and solutions when MM-88 unleashes its unremitting destruction, and none of its leaders are willing to listen or pursue plans that may arrest the progress of virus, Toby’s plight is an indictment of adults’ abdication of their sacred duty to build a civilization that is healthy, safe, and responsive to children’s needs.
Figure 6: Nearly obscured from view, Yoshizumi hovers at the top edge of the frame
as the frantic team receives a distress call from a young boy.
The intensity accelerates as Toby continues his pleas for anyone to answer. He plaintively asks four separate times whether anybody can hear him as he continues to explain his situation. “Daddy told me not to use the radio until I turn ten. I’m only five.” He says that his father is “asleep on the floor” and “won’t wake up” and his mother is “gone.” In a claustrophobic close-up, Tatsuno, his expression tortured, desperately cries, “Toby, the switch! The switch! Let go of the switch!” But as Tatsuno exerts increasingly fierce yet fruitless efforts to reach Toby, Virus unexpectedly cuts to an extended close-up of Yoshizumi. Until this shot, the focus of the scene has been Tatsuno and his feverish despair, first at the persistent radio silence as he seeks news of Japan, and then at his inability to communicate with Toby, who serves as a surrogate for his own young son. As a husband and father, Tatsuno is closely knit into the social fabric of his family and homeland, and he suffers its loss keenly and deeply.
We might expect that Yoshizumi – who has avoided close relationships and their attendant responsibilities as signified by his peripheral presence in a scene that dramatizes the grievous fate of a young child – will not be seriously affected by Toby’s plight. But the twelve-second close-up of Yoshizumi that immediately follows Tatsuno’s pleas for Toby to let go of the switch, which occurs about forty-four minutes into the film, indicates a profound shift in Yoshizumi’s perspective. As he listens to young Toby coughing and saying, “I don’t feel good. I want my mommy. I’m scared,” Yoshizumi’s face reflects a slow-burning intensity (Figure 7). He leans in, processing Toby’s words and seemingly relating the child’s despair at being left to fend for himself to the fate of his girlfriend and their unborn child. In the chronology of filmic events, this is the first time that Yoshizumi exhibits an interest in the welfare of another human being. Toby is a surrogate for Tatsuno’s son; but much more crucially for the eventual redemption of humanity, he also represents the family that Yoshizumi could have had and the personal responsibility that he has heretofore ruthlessly rejected in favor of his seismological research.
Figure 7: Yoshizumi listens to Toby’s plight with uncharacteristic concern.
In contrast to the exaggerated expressions of agony and grief repeatedly displayed by Tatsuno and other men in the room, Yoshizumi’s reactions are more subdued, as these weighty emotional stakes are unfamiliar to him. But the scene insistently privileges his reactions to Toby’s fate, which suddenly takes a startling turn for the worse. “I’m not a baby, though,” Toby declares. “Daddy’s gun is right here. I know how to use it, too.” All ten men listen to this statement with dread and consternation, including Yoshizumi, who is now closer to the compositional center of the frame (Figure 8). In an extreme close-up on Tatsuno, Toby declares that he doesn’t want to be alone. “You’re not alone!” Tatsuno cries. “Toby! Toby!” As a shot rings out, we cut immediately to a brief but intense close-up of Yoshizumi. His haunted expression is potent but inscrutable – unlike the extreme torment that distorts the other men’s faces in the next, wider shot. Despite their theatrics, the scene has now become Yoshizumi’s. His attentive reaction to Toby’s loss is an initial, tentative step toward his evolution. As Tatsuno collapses in grief, Yoshizumi lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. It is the first gesture of physical connection and warmth he has offered in the entire film. He and his girlfriend Noriko never touch or embrace in the brief flashbacks that present their relationship, even when she reveals her pregnancy.
Figure 8: The newly attentive Yoshizumi is positioned closer to the center of the frame in this group shot.
Although Yoshizumi’s journey toward empathy has begun, during this incident and throughout the remainder of the film he maintains a degree of separation from his comrades that is critical to his (and humanity’s) eventual “day of resurrection.” Melodrama embraces the display but also the regulation of excess emotion. Yoshizumi must learn to prioritize love and sacrifice without inflicting the trauma and carnage that come from raw, uncontrolled passions or irresponsible participation in corrupt social and political systems. When a shot rings out after Toby apparently pulls the trigger on his dad’s gun, a man next to the grieving Tatsuno sadly observes that the child must have “gone to heaven.” Tatsuno reacts violently, calling him an “asshole” and tackling him to the floor. As everyone jumps in to help, a mass of intertwined bodies writhes chaotically and ineffectually. Visually, Yoshizumi is once again on the margins of the frame, trying to defuse the attack and limit Tatsuno’s motions. This foreshadows his developing capacities as a balanced hero: someone who can feel but avoids direct participation in the worst impulses of the human race, who learns (the conservative lesson) that monogamous heterosexuality and the babies it produces constitute our species’ sole path to redemption.
Initiated by this affecting radio encounter with young Toby, Yoshizumi’s role as a surrogate father begins in earnest in November 1982 when he and the leader of the Japanese station, Commander Nakanishi (Isao Natsuyagi, credited as Isao Natsuki), pay an unexpected visit to the Norwegian research station on their way to the first Antarctic conference, during which the eleven countries with posts on the continent will convene and try to establish a new mode of governance. “It’s a meeting to decide the fate of the survivors,” Commander Nakanishi states simply. “We can’t be late.” Unfortunately, their vehicle is derailed by a boulder while they are still more than six hundred miles from their destination, so they ski to the nearest outpost, operated by Norway. There, they discover nothing but frigid wind and bloody dead bodies, indicative of violent confrontations. When a lone woman silently peeps out of an interior door (Figure 9), which she immediately pulls shut when she observes them, they gently coax her to come out. “We are from the Japanese wintering team,” Nakanishi explains. There is no response. “It’s all right,” Yoshizumi tells her, through the closed door.
Figure 9: Marit, the sole survivor at the Norwegian station, is a critical element in Yoshizumi’s redemption.
Following the gesture of placing his hand on Tatsuno’s shoulder, this simple statement is the first time that Yoshizumi exerts verbal effort to soothe or reassure another person, and his entreaty is successful. The woman slowly reopens the door but then collapses. They see that she is in the late stages of pregnancy, and in the next scene, as she lies resting, Marit (Olivia Hussey) explains what happened: everyone “went mad” and shot each other. Her own husband tried to kill her, so she hid. As Yoshizumi and Nakanishi bury the fallen men, Nakanishi asks, “Can you stay here with that woman?” He has to get to the Antarctic conference on time and can’t take a pregnant woman with him. In a polite yet restrained manner, Yoshizumi responds less than enthusiastically. “I understand. I’ll figure something out.” Perhaps he is disappointed at being left out of the seemingly important work of governance, or feels awkward at the prospect of dealing with Marit and her pregnant state. However, staying behind with Marit is essential to Yoshizumi’s evolution for two reasons: (1) he becomes a father and begins to fall in love, giving him a stake in humanity’s future; and (2) he is not present at the conference that endorses a morally compromised framework for recovery. As the film painstakingly emphasizes, governments are toxic, almost inevitably devolving into exploitation and privileging their continued existence over the health and safety of the individuals they are charged to protect.
Crosscutting between the historic conference to create a new framework for civilization being held at Palmer Station, the base for the United States, and the distant Norwegian outpost where Marit gives birth while attended by Yoshizumi contrasts the value of each enterprise. Just after the conference begins (Figure 10), Cold War alliances and mistrust taint the proceedings, and a brawl breaks out. Major Carter intervenes by shooting off a pistol to get everyone’s attention, but before they can resume, Commander Nakanishi receives a message and announces to the assembly that a Norwegian survivor has just given birth to a baby girl. The collective response is underwhelming. One of the attendees sighs and declares that it is “unfortunate” to be born into such a desperate situation. “Not necessarily,” Nakanishi tells him. “That will be up to us.”
Figure 10: Representatives of the Antarctic research bases gather at the American station to organize a system of governance.
Dr. Borodinov (Chris Wiggins) of the Soviet Union observes that the child’s name, Gry (pronounced “gree”), means “the first light of the sun, the dawn of a new day.” Gry represents a chance for the world to start over. Can these assembled representatives do it right this time? Can they create a peaceful civilization that will protect her? Over the refrains of the film’s sentimental title song by folk artist Janis Ian, “Toujour Gai mon Cher” (also known as “You Are Love” but which translates to “Cheerful Under All Circumstances My Dear”), we cut to a close-up of the newborn infant and then her mother lying in bed nearby. Yoshizumi enters the room and presents a message from the newly formed Federal Council of Antarctica, welcoming Gry to the new world (Figure 11). He behaves in a casual, friendly manner, smiling warmly at Marit and at little Gry in her bassinet. Though we didn’t witness the birth, we presume that he must have assisted. Gry gurgles as she waves her little arms, the melancholic but beautiful theme song flowing gracefully in the background (Figure 12).
Figure 11: Yoshizumi presents Marit with a welcome message for her infant daughter
from the newly established Federal Council of Antarctica.
Figure 12: Gry [“gree”], the first child born in the Antarctic refuge.
Figure 13: “Rape is rape!” The women denounce a recent sexual assault and insist that they
deserve protection from what a male doctor describes as “regrettable but inevitable” attacks.
Dr. Ollich is the only woman who sits among the male leaders, implying that she has a status or value that the others somehow lack, and can therefore help decide the females’ fate. She declares that in their present circumstances “women have become our most valuable natural resource” and that “one-to-one relationships are no longer possible. This means that every woman, however reluctantly, will have to accommodate more than one man” (Figure 14). This premise, dispensed by a woman visually aligned with the men, determines the structure of sexual encounters for the rest of the film, in which each of the eight remaining women, including Marit, must regularly accept “appointments” with men and attempt to become pregnant so that humanity can survive.
Figure 14: Seated with the men, Dr. Irma Ollich declares that women
must provide sexual service for the human species to continue.
Crucially, the women not only engage in procreation but are also tasked with satisfying the physical appetites of 855 men. At no time does anyone at the conference, including the women, explicitly consider the corresponding needs of females or the obvious possibility that if procreation is necessary, each woman, rather than servicing dozens of men through ongoing appointments, could select a man of her choice and be monogamous with him indefinitely, or at least during an entire pregnancy and birth. Because Yoshizumi is not present for the discussion in which these new principles are laid out, he is insulated from the ethical implications they carry for the men who agree to treat women as interchangeable objects that exist for male pleasure and procreation.
This approach produces a strange dichotomy in which females are increasingly venerated as divine mothers but also must ensure that men’s carnal urges are addressed through forced rendezvous. Therefore, Yoshizumi has access to a moral pathway that is not available to most of the male characters: he can be redeemed. This new “civilization” is eventually destroyed in a second, purifying apocalypse because it does not respect or protect women, a point that is made explicit through the initial smash cut from a tender close-up of newborn baby Gry to the cry of “Rape is rape!” Viewers are invited to consider the compulsory sexual service that will await this innocent infant as she grows to adulthood in a world in which she exists to serve the demands of men.
The morally flawed nature of the system is reiterated in a six-minute holiday party sequence that immediately follows the conference proceedings but takes place one year later, in December 1983, just after the film’s opening scenes in which the submarine Nereid visits the wreckage of Tokyo. “Virus MM-88 continued to occupy earth,” explains an intertitle. “Mankind remained holed up on the icy continent.” At night, inflatables filled with passengers approach Palmer Station, which is the de facto headquarters of the new Federal Council of Antarctica. Invoking the Christian “Holy Mother” theme of the sequence, a gentle piano performance of “Silent Night, Holy Night” slowly fades in, and there are shots of outdoor shrines to Mary with candles burning. In our first glimpse of the party, a shot with over thirty-five people, the decorations are festive but the mood is subdued (Figure 15).
Figure 15: The survivors gather for a gloomy Christmas celebration that privileges the men.
The women, either pregnant or with a baby in arms, are present at a “mother and child” table. Marit holds Gry in her lap, wearing a pensive expression as she surveys the proceedings, perhaps signaling her dismay at the inhumane sexual economy in this new order (Figure 16). Her toddler daughter smiles with eager anticipation and joy, still comfortably bathed in the ignorance of youth. The assembled men, including Admiral Conway, take turns holding the children and seem enamored of them. Fukasaku’s camera carefully lingers on the women and their reactions, giving us a poignant sense of their perspectives and what they may be suffering, even at this “party.” They continue to face an untenable paradox: They are worshipped as saintly mothers but must devote themselves to providing sex to a seemingly unending list of male partners, even when such activities contravene the possibility of familial love and devotion.
Figure 16: A somber Marit holds her toddler daughter, perhaps reflecting on the servitude that awaits her.
Notably, one man in the party room who quietly but utterly rejects Antarctica’s model of male-female relations is Yoshizumi. He wanders alone, observing Marit and Gry from a distant corner as they are surrounded by admiring men. Marit turns and notices Yoshizumi, and immediately strikes a path toward him, pulling a silver pendant from around her neck as she does so; its female cameo is strongly reminiscent of the Holy Mother (Figure 17). She presents it to Yoshizumi, wishing him “Merry Christmas” and telling him it is a gift from Gry. He reacts hesitantly and she asks, “What’s the matter? Don’t you like children?” He admits, “There was a time, perhaps, when I did not,” and then smiles sweetly at Marit in an over-the-shoulder close-up.
Figure 17: Marit presents Yoshizumi with a cameo pendant reminiscent of the Holy Mother.
The two of them are connecting romantically and parentally, but the new regime abruptly intervenes. A polite young curly-headed man in a sailor’s uniform approaches and informs Marit that they have an appointment. He holds out a festive card adorned with penguins and holly that says “Merry Christmas” and has one word on the inside: “Marit.” She is literally his holiday “gift.” This second “Merry Christmas” wish, coming so soon on the heels of Marit’s warm holiday message, exposes the duplicitous nature of the celebratory proceedings and women’s place in them. Close-ups of Marit and Yoshizumi punctuate their uncomfortable reactions. Marit turns to say farewell to him, but he is already gone, swiftly making his way out of the room.
That is not the end of the sequence, however. In a second, shorter scene with multiple shots framed through a window, as if someone is watching from the outside, Marit and the sailor are in a bedroom. In anticipation of their coupling, she begins to pull the curtains closed but sees something that arrests her attention. Transfixed, she watches Yoshizumi completing a beautiful snow sculpture. He touches it gently on the head, unaware of Marit’s gaze. A close shot of the sculpture from Marit’s point of view reveals that it is a small angelic girl, evocative of Gry – and the statues of Mary that introduced the party sequence. Although “Marit” is a Norwegian name equivalent to the English “Margaret” and not “Mary,” its phonetic similarity to “Mary” also suggests that the angel Yoshizumi lovingly crafts could be an evocation of Marit and her symbolic connection to the Holy Mother. Marit’s lingering stare, even after Yoshizumi departs, indicates the significance of his actions to her. She must provide corporeal satisfaction to the sailor, but her heart is with the surrogate father of her child, who behaves like a devoted father – playing in the snow, creating an angel, and refusing to participate in the ruthless, abusive system established by their government.
Another character who seemingly exempts himself from the corrupt sexual proceedings is the recalcitrant, hot-tempered Major Carter. In full dress uniform, he sits at a bar during the party, consuming copious amounts of liquor. He is not interested in the babies or the women, or any of the other attendees. Two young men approach and ask him to give his opinion on the parentage of one of the children, each hoping to be declared the father. Major Carter gives a deliberately ambiguous answer and insists that they leave him alone (Figure 18). He does not remove himself from the scene, like Yoshizumi, but his refusal to participate marks his redemptive potential, which is fully manifested as the threat of the nuclear apocalypse unfolds.
Figure 18: Refusing to engage in the festivities at the Christmas party, Major Carter drowns his sorrows.
Heroic Sacrifice: The (Second) Apocalypse That Saved the World
The next stage of the film hinges on Yoshizumi’s devotion to Marit and Gry – and his emerging relationship with Major Carter, which evokes the fraught Cold War dynamic between Japan and the United States. When Marit finally closes the curtain so that she can copulate with the young sailor, the succeeding image in the film is Yoshizumi at his desk. He’s fallen asleep working on seismological research. The juxtaposition of this shot with Marit’s appointment signifies a shift in what his scientific work represents. Previously, he employed it to justify his complete abdication from romantic or familial responsibilities. Now, he chooses it as an outlet to manage the emotions surrounding his deepening connection to Marit and Gry, as he cannot countenance their exploitation. And as we soon learn, his research may be the mechanism for safeguarding their lives.
Major Carter, with whom Yoshizumi shares quarters, enters the room and climbs onto a top bunk. As he leans over to turn off Yoshizumi’s lamp, he notices the seismic map Yoshizumi has been sketching (with notes conveniently in English!), which indicates an earthquake of magnitude 8.0–8.5 striking the Washington, DC area. Yoshizumi is soon summoned before Admiral Conway and the Federal Council to explain his findings, especially in relation to the timing of the quake and the similarity of its force to a nuclear explosion. Yoshizumi is mystified, because he doesn’t understand how a major earthquake near Washington could be an issue for Antarctica. However, Carter, who was a liaison to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States, reveals the existence of the Automatic Reaction System, which has dozens of nuclear missiles pointed at the USSR and is designed to be triggered by a nuclear detonation.
Captain McCloud confirms that their submarine, the Nereid, received the ARS activation signal a year earlier, which was surprising because they believed that no one was alive to send it.2 Captain Nevsky (John Evans) of the USSR discloses that his country has a similar system. US missiles landing on Soviet soil will trigger it, and the Soviet retaliatory strike will include weapons targeted at Palmer Station in Antarctica, as their top officials believed that America was building a secret military base there. The assembled men express forceful consternation, disbelief, and outrage over the seemingly inevitable destruction awaiting them. Ironically, even after almost all humans have already been eliminated, the threat of a nuclear catastrophe is still present. According to Sontag:
There is a historically specifiable twist which intensifies the anxiety, or better, the trauma, suffered by everyone in the middle of the 20th century when it became clear that from now on to the end of human history every person would spend his individual life not only under threat of individual death, which is certain, but of something almost unsupportable psychologically – collective incineration and extinction which could come any time, virtually without warning. (199)
Major Carter interjects by proposing that they “send someone to Washington to disarm the damn thing.” Yoshizumi, who has been located on the periphery of the mise-en-scène during these proceedings, gets the first reaction shot after Carter’s statement, hinting at his importance to the discussion. The mission to Washington DC, especially with the virus still active, is likely a death sentence, and the question of who will be assigned to save the world is a fraught one. The men gather to draw playing cards from a hat to make that determination – until the fiery Major Carter angrily dumps them on the floor, declares “Admiral, I’m goin’ myself,” and stalks out of the room. Yoshizumi immediately begins retrieving the cards in a shot that strongly conjures the trope of Japan cleaning up Americans’ messes. Admiral Conway says resignedly, “It’s all right, Doctor. Major Carter is correct. It must be him,” referring to Carter’s expert knowledge of the ARS. “He will need help,” Yoshizumi advises the admiral forcefully.
And Yoshizumi is ready to volunteer, perhaps because of his newfound devotion to Marit and Gry. But in the memorable scene that follows, he must convince the intractable Major Carter that he is a worthy partner. In a long shot, Carter wanders alone, surrounded by the icy landscape of Antarctica. Yoshizumi bounds up eagerly, hailing him and holding up the ace of spades – the card for the person tasked with joining the operation. Carter peremptorily rips it up, discounting Yoshizumi’s selection. He is free to volunteer, but he does not acknowledge Yoshizumi’s right to do the same. Furthermore, Major Carter makes it clear to Yoshizumi that even if he was going to take someone, “It sure as hell wouldn’t be you.” They face one another in a tense standoff: a diminutive Japanese man and a hulking American (Figure 19). Carter worries that Yoshizumi, despite his expertise with explosives, will slow him down. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Doctor, but you’re not physically tough enough for the job.” He pats Yoshizumi’s cheek patronizingly, clearly demeaning his masculinity, and walks away. An intense close-up on Yoshizumi, reminding us of his reaction to Toby’s predicament over the radio, suggests that he will not accept this casually pernicious dismissal.
Figure 19: Yoshizumi insists that he accompany Carter on the mission to disarm the Automatic Reaction System.
He charges after Major Carter and punches him in the back, crying, “No!” Initially, Carter reacts as if he is dealing with a naughty child, dropping Yoshizumi to the ground and refusing to fight back. Yoshizumi’s actions may seem tumultuous and unplanned, but his attacks are enacted in the service of a very specific purpose: participating in the protection of the survivors. Carter does not regard Yoshizumi as an equal opponent, a seeming extension of the dismissive attitude he has exhibited toward this scientist and the country of Japan. Writing about racial melodrama in 1990s science fiction disaster films, Despina Kakoudaki notes, “In staging violent encounters between individuals and between rigidly defined groups, the disaster/apocalyptic film operates through embodied representations of moral legibility, which expands to encompass, destroy, and resignify the landscape” (118). This passage aptly describes the contours of Yoshizumi and Carter’s confrontation and their evolving relationship. Yoshizumi doesn’t have Carter’s brawn but will not cease his insistent though wildly ineffective assault until finally Carter slugs him and knocks him out cold. As Carter eyes the unconscious scientist, he observes, “Life is wonderful” and then after a beat asks, “Hey, Yoshizumi, how do you say ‘Life is wonderful’ in Japanese?” Of course, Yoshizumi doesn’t respond, but Carter, apparently impressed by Yoshizumi’s courage and pluck, carefully hoists him over his shoulder and slowly tramps away, and we later learn that they indeed become partners on the suicide mission to disarm the ARS.
Like the Toby incident, this overblown skirmish between Yoshizumi and Carter drives the film’s dynamics of redemption. Virus, an epic melodrama, has dozens of significant characters, but only two of them, Carter and Yoshizumi, ever perceive or articulate the film’s poignant but simple theme: “Life is wonderful.” According to Brooks, “Melodrama from its inception takes as its concern and raison d’être the location, expression, and imposition of basic ethical and psychic truths. It says them over and over in clear language” (15). Virus reminds us that even under the most difficult circumstances, the energy and beauty of life itself is what we must treasure most and that devotion to politics, power, or prejudice is misguided and inevitably harmful.
And yet. The film also cannily wedges a moral judgment about which nation is most culpable in the earth’s “double death” into Carter and Yoshizumi’s transformations. Both characters express redemptive promise. Carter at least partially discards his prejudices against Japan by working closely with Yoshizumi, and Yoshizumi demonstrates sensitivity, strength, and determination by insisting on his participation in the Washington, DC operation that may save Marit, Gry, and the entire Antarctic settlement. Both men also refuse to take part in the brutal sexual economy instituted by the Federal Republic of Antarctica, absolving them of the hypocrisy that taints all other male characters. Ultimately, however, their redemption is shaped by their national affiliations.
Carter, an American, shows personal promise, but the United States is directly responsible for both apocalypses: first, by creating the horrific MM-88 virus and then keeping it “top secret” instead of enlisting the aid of the international scientific community to halt its spread; and second, by constructing and activating the ARS, which visits nuclear devastation on the globe. Yoshizumi, a Japanese scientist who was previously devoted only to his incendiary area of expertise, seismology, embodies his nation’s rigid militaristic posture prior to and during World War II. But in the double apocalypse scenario presented in Virus, the United States (Carter) has actively wreaked havoc in the pursuit of its own survival above all else, while Japan (Yoshizumi), though initially detached, awakens to the gravity of the crisis and manifests heroic empathy and action. Thus, Carter must be sacrificed, while Yoshizumi may survive.
Yoshizumi’s drive to protect Antarctica and his capacity to endure depend on his relationship with Marit, which moves into a new stage on the night before he and Carter depart on their perilous expedition. A large company of men gathers for a final dinner to wish the duo success, and Admiral Conway offers each of them a parting gift: Carter, a large bottle of expensive liquor, and Yoshizumi, the keys to his quarters, where Yoshizumi can spend his last night in comfort. As Yoshizumi enters the admiral’s private space, he finds a volume titled The Way of Zen sitting on a desk, suggesting that Admiral Conway, though flawed because he accepts the abuse of women as a condition of “survival,” is trying to evolve by studying Japanese spiritual philosophy. Yoshizumi smiles as he opens the book, preparing to read it as he parts the curtains for the sleeping area. Unexpectedly, he finds Marit waiting for him. She approaches silently, takes the book from his hand, and, overcome with emotion, collapses in his arms. Yoshizumi is equally affected and directly connects her to his lost love, Noriko. He gently holds Marit’s long tresses (Figure 20). “Dark hair. She had dark hair, too. Her child would have had – dark hair.” With an anguished groan, he buries his face in his hand.
Figure 20: Yoshizumi and Marit share an intimate connection on the night before his departure.
And then, in another key moment for the film and Yoshizumi’s evolution, he clasps Marit and pulls her tightly against him. “All gone!” he cries. “No more effing dying!” Their embrace evolves into passionate kissing and, we presume, intercourse. Their lovemaking differs markedly from the other intimate encounters that the film has presented, as it is not a prearranged or compulsory “appointment.” The romantic agency that both Marit and Yoshizumi exhibit forges a bond between them that provides hope for a “resurrection.” Marit and her child, Gry, are full-fledged replacements for Yoshizumi’s erstwhile girlfriend Noriko and her unborn baby. Yoshizumi is now a devoted lover and a father, roles that he repudiated prior to the pandemic. Significantly, his pledge of “no more effing dying,” fervently uttered with Marit close against him, extends only to her and her child. Yoshizumi has vowed to protect them, but that is the limit of his power. Aside from a very small collection of survivors, Antarctica’s population will soon be “all gone,” consumed so that humanity can be reborn.
Similarly, Marit is focused on Yoshizumi, and not necessarily the continuation of the larger community. The next morning, as he and Carter head out to the Nereid, the British nuclear submarine that will ferry them to Washington, DC, Marit, Gry and the other mothers and children, along with a small skeleton crew, board an icebreaker ship. For safety, they are heading away from Palmer Station in case nuclear missiles strike. As the mothers line up on the deck of the icebreaker, their babies in their arms, they solemnly observe the departing submarine that represents their last chances. “Oh God, make him come back!” Marit says in an intense close-up. Interestingly, her divine entreaty is not that Yoshizumi’s mission is successful – only that he survives and is able to return to her. And that prayer is answered.
The submarine trip to Washington, DC is scheduled to take about ten days, which should get Yoshizumi and Carter to their destination before the massive quake that Yoshizumi has predicted. Aboard the sub, the hypocrisy of the United States is on full display. Carter spends his time sleeping, while Yoshizumi checks and rechecks his calculations. Japan is the workhorse attempting to save the earth, trying to dismantle the fiendish doomsday scenario concocted by the US and the USSR. When Captain McCloud visits their quarters, he mentions that they have five days remaining to reach their destination. Yoshizumi is concerned, because although their arrival will be within the deadline he established, he explains that “earthquakes do not always occur on schedule.” McCloud and Carter exchange shocked glances at this statement of an obvious truth, and McCloud rushes off to get more speed out of the submarine. Climbing out of his bunk and standing menacingly in front of Yoshizumi, Carter demands, “You got any more surprises for us, Doctor?” At this stage, the film allows us to read this sanctimonious criticism as ridiculous and petulant. We are well aware that the United States has unleashed not one but two massive, catastrophic “surprises”: the deadly MM-88 virus and the ARS (Automatic Reaction System).
Carter’s duplicity in these calamities as a member of the US military will soon condemn him, although he has an extraordinary moment of redemption before he expires. As the submarine approaches DC via the Potomac River, the two men prepare to depart. They inject themselves with an experimental vaccine created by Dr. Latour and don scuba gear that will allow them to swim out to an inflatable boat. On shore, they are surrounded by a lifeless cityscape of dereliction and decay. They move swiftly, running through the streets until they arrive at the White House. But before they can proceed further, the film reminds us that a second apocalypse may be inevitable: a brief tremor destabilizes the ground beneath them.
With a renewed urgency, they enter the White House and descend many levels below ground, attempting to reach the tightly secured ARS control room. Ignoring Yoshizumi’s expertise, Carter handles the explosives that allow them to blast their way into sealed entrances, but as he sets and activates the final device, another quake hits that prevents him from taking cover before it detonates. He is gravely wounded; Yoshizumi pulls a large metal fragment from his chest. As more tremors strike, Major Carter cries, “Go! GO!” The survival of the world now hinges on Yoshizumi, the man Carter regarded as unworthy of the mission. Yoshizumi runs determinedly toward his goal, tossed indiscriminately by increasingly forceful vibrations that delay his progress.
When he finally accesses the command center, he observes the ghoulish corpse of General Garland (Henry Silva) seated in front of the ARS activation switches. Yoshizumi makes a frantic beeline for the console, but as he reaches for the yellow button to disarm the system, the red “launch” button lights up. He is a fraction of a second too late to avert tragedy, and he watches in horror and disbelief as dozens of nuclear missiles launch. In despair, he turns toward General Garland and furiously kicks his chair over. Visually, a heroic Japanese man looms over a malicious and ignorant US general who has, even after his own death, activated another apocalypse. It is a potent indictment of US nuclear power that conjures the atomic bombs dropped on Japan near the end of World War II. America’s toxicity is an inescapable conclusion (Figures 21-22).
Figure 21: The ghoulish General Garland activated the ARS before he died.
Figure 22: In an indictment of U.S. abuses of power, Yoshizumi kicks over General Garland’s chair.
At this juncture, a fatally wounded Carter manages to stumble into the command center and collapse. Like his country, he is morally compromised and destined for extinction, but his dawning awareness of the value of life and his newfound respect for Yoshizumi allow him access to peace and insight before he passes. Darting quickly to his side, Yoshizumi dejectedly informs him that “it’s too late.” Carter understands, and with one of his last breaths, he slowly drawls Yoshizumi’s name. “Yah-shee-zoo-mee, how do you say, ‘Life is wonderful’ in Japanese?” Yoshizumi gently furnishes him the words, and Carter expires as he repeats them with a blissful smile (Figure 23). In a context of ultimate despair, when the human race may soon be completely obliterated, Carter very movingly asserts the inherent beauty and worth of life. Having been alive at all, even being alive for a few more brief seconds – these are rewards in and of themselves. Expressing the sentiment that “Life is wonderful” in the Japanese language as he dies indicates Carter’s growth as a character and signals that Japanese vision and values can lead the way in humanity’s next iteration.
Figure 23: Major Carter’s dying words (in Japanese) are “Life is wonderful.”
Initially, both Yoshizumi and Carter believe this is the end of everything. After Carter passes, Yoshizumi radios the Nereid to let them know their mission was a failure. A montage of cataclysmic nuclear explosions follows, including the destruction of Palmer Station, and the results are clear. “The world died again,” an intertitle somberly announces. This outcome could easily be the conclusion of a “double apocalypse” film focused on the irredeemable venality and corruption of humankind, but Virus features a particular brand of melodramatic hopefulness. Therefore, this bleak intertitle is immediately succeeded by the narratively suggestive phrase “Several years later. . . .” In a hazy, distant shot, a ragged, stumbling figure gradually advances toward the camera, and we eventually recognize a greatly changed Yoshizumi. Completely alone, he painstakingly makes his way through a vast, rocky landscape marked by massive craters, presumably created by the missiles that rained down on the earth. Though the goal of his odyssey is unclear, he is in nearly constant motion, never resting or sleeping. The film emphasizes his stalwart determination in a brief iconic pose that recalls Japan as the Land of the Rising Sun: Yoshizumi pauses on a ridge, walking staff in hand, a musical crescendo surging as the sun behind him encircles his body (Figure 24). Even in his unkempt, gaunt state, Yoshizumi suggests the eternal dominion of Japan and Japanese culture.
Figure 24: The indomitable Yoshizumi represents the everlasting power of Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun.
But what is Yoshizumi’s goal? When he enters an abandoned church and has a silent, imagined conversation with a skeletal corpse who asks him, “Where are you going?” he responds that his friends and child are “south of here.” The corpse wonders if the child is his, and Yoshizumi, admiring the silver cameo pendant that Marit gave him as a gift from Gry, admits that she is not his child – but he loves her very much. “It’s no use,” the corpse taunts him, “There’s no one left.” The restrained but fierce stare that Yoshizumi offers in response invokes the epiphany he had when he listened to young Toby’s plight on the radio. “I’m heading south anyway,” he declares. Where once Yoshizumi shunned relationships if they inconvenienced him or undermined his life choices, he is now willing to endure anything for the smallest chance of seeing Marit and Gry again.
As Yoshizumi wearily continues his operatic, epic trek, fishing with his bare hands and slipping down snow-clad mountains only to pull himself up again, the film cuts to a rough-hewn wooden cabin next to a rocky beach, with mountains in the distance (Figure 25). Multiple graves are marked with crosses, and two young children play outside. Inside the cabin, Marit gazes out a crude window at the children. She is alive! Virus expertly leverages the disparity of knowledge that often drives melodrama. Viewers are now aware that, against impossible odds, Yoshizumi and Marit both continue to survive, and we can anticipate their reunion, a dramatic payoff that the film has been building toward for nearly two-and-a-half hours.
Figure 25: The ramshackle refuge of humanity’s remaining survivors.
The French doctor, Latour, speaks to a downcast group of women (and a handful of men) sitting quietly in the cabin. “Don’t you understand? Winter is coming. We have very little food left.” He urges that they head north. He has injected them with his vaccine, and he is also optimistic that MM-88 has been neutralized by the radiation released worldwide. Dr. Ollich, the female doctor who earlier endorsed the notion that Antarctica’s women should satisfy multiple men’s sexual needs in the interest of propagating the species, replies dully, “It doesn’t matter. My child is dead. I’m tired. It doesn’t matter.” Any professional or scientific expertise that she may have had has apparently been erased by her identity as a mother.
In this atmosphere of despair, Marit steps outside and begins gathering driftwood. And in a few short beats, she becomes aware of Yoshizumi’s approach. As she crouches down, perhaps contemplating what she has just heard inside the cabin, her gaze shifts, and her forehead furrows in surprise (Figure 26). Melodramatic string music swells as a point-of-view shot zooms in toward a tiny figure slowly stumbling forward, dwarfed by mountains. The camera rises with Marit as she stands, watching the figure intently. He pauses, still framed in a long shot, and two blinding, star-shaped reflections suddenly blink from the center of his chest, signaling that this may be Yoshizumi, wearing Gry’s pendant. “Yoshizumi,” Marit breathes. They simultaneously recognize one another. She throws her arms wide, screaming “Yoshizumi! Yoshizumi!” and running toward him, while he pushes himself to move as fast as he can in his debilitated state. Meanwhile, the occupants of the cabin, hearing Marit’s cries, also react with shock and delight (Figure 27).
Figure 26: The despondent Marit stares intently at the sudden sight of a distant figure approaching.
Figure 27: The other survivors react to Yoshizumi’s arrival.
Kakoudaki notes in her analysis of Contagion (2011) as a disaster melodrama, “The operations of chance, coincidence, accident, or fate, and the upheavals or surprises we may find in melodramatic texts emerge in [a] space of possibility and function as its most spectacular manifestations, active reminders that (in melodrama) anything might happen. Melodrama also uses the structural positioning or timing of an event to alter its narrative and emotional impact” (314-315). Yoshizumi and Marit’s improbable reconnection, occurring years after a second global calamity and presented with crosscutting that allows viewers to know that each is alive before they discover it themselves is a compelling example of melodrama’s “spectacular manifestations.” Dynamic handheld lateral tracking shots amplify the tumultuous exuberance of the moment, as Marit and Yoshizumi desperately rush to meet one another across a vast beach, the water sparkling behind them.
In the end, Yoshizumi stumbles just before he connects with Marit, and she reaches for him, recalling the scene in Admiral Conway’s quarters the night before Yoshizumi departed on his suicide mission, when she collapsed and he pulled her into his arms. “You’re alive! You are! You are!” Marit gushes (Figure 28). She throws herself against him as the others watch joyfully. In one of the film’s final shots, a close-up, Yoshizumi faces the camera, enfolded in Marit’s embrace (Figure 29). He speaks slowly and hesitantly, as if he hasn’t uttered a word aloud in a very long time. “Life is – life is wonderful,” he proclaims. In the next, wider shot, the remaining survivors surround them, and Yoshizumi smiles as the film’s haunting theme song by Janis Ian, “Toujour Gai Mon Cher,” once again rises. Major Carter expires with the “Life is wonderful” statement on his lips, expressed in Japanese. Yoshizumi’s assertion of this same principle in English, despite his heritage as a Japanese man whose perseverance represents his nation’s power and redemption, signals that, like Carter, he is willing to look beyond his own identity to empathize with others, to appreciate the value of human life itself, irrespective of national or ethnic origins.
Figure 28: Marit reunites with Yoshizumi, after believing he was dead for years;
the high contrast shot intensifies the drama of their encounter.
Figure 29: Enfolded in Marit’s arms, Yoshizumi declares that “life is wonderful.”
Conclusion
Yoshizumi’s yearslong epic journey from Antarctica to Washington and then (on foot!) to the tip of South America, from alienation to love and redemption, is what drives Virus toward its day of resurrection, illustrating the potency of melodrama in apocalyptic disaster films. Virus embraces emotional excess rather than scientific causality or logic, continually offering plot developments that strain credulity but enhance humanity’s capacity to emerge, phoenix-like, from the catastrophes produced by its worst impulses. For example, the MM-88 virus, described as a “mimic,” supposedly operates by magnifying the growth rate and toxicity of existing viruses, in which case victims would need to be infected with a cold, the flu, or another virus before MM-88 could kill them. Yet MM-88 seems to flourish everywhere in the world and dispatch anyone who breathes open air, regardless of whether they have been near another person who is infected with and can spread a traditional virus whose effects are then augmented by MM-88. The mechanism and action of the vaccine that Dr. Latour creates are spurious at best. He claims that it uses “high levels of radiation” to create “effective antibodies” and that, once injected, it confers immediate immunity (a scientific impossibility). And much of the drama surrounding the second apocalypse is avoidable. If, as the Soviet officer Captain Nevsky claims, Palmer Station is targeted by nuclear missiles because his superiors believed it contained a secret US military base, what about the rest of the Antarctic continent? There are ten other research stations available, located over thousands of square miles. Couldn’t all the survivors withdraw to one of the stations that is not targeted by Soviet missiles?
But these gaps in logic are never addressed, because they are not relevant to the film’s purpose and message. Given the unceasing venality of the Cold War era, especially as expressed by the US and the USSR, everyone – with the exception of Yoshizumi, Marit, and a handful of other people – must be consumed before there is chance for rebirth. Yoshizumi’s survival is itself so improbable as to be nothing less than a miracle – which is what Dr. Latour declares it when he finally reaches their settlement. Yoshizumi has painstakingly and wholeheartedly absorbed the major lesson of the film, that life itself is wonderful – an axiom that supersedes all else, especially the operation of governments and politics. At an elemental level, our singular task as humans is to produce and protect life (babies) within the framework of loving, committed, monogamous, heterosexual relationships. Everyone and everything that contravenes the “truth” of this principle is dramatically and systematically subsumed. Despina Kakoudaki notes, “Destroying what looked like home is necessary in order to reaffirm what home really means. The destruction allows a new beginning, especially where the weight of the past and past political mistakes seem to have eliminated the possibility for change” (113).
What is the future of the tiny tribe that remains at the end of Virus? Although a “new beginning” may be possible, the film insistently highlights the seemingly inevitable debasement of human institutions and ideologies, suggesting that any attempt to create social or political structures that go beyond a simple devotion to life and love will be doomed to failure. A quick check of reproductive science reveals that the small group with which Yoshizumi reunites at the tip of South America – approximately twenty people – does not have the genetic variability required to restart the global population. And if they manage to expand their numbers, this doubly apocalyptic film implies that whatever institutions they create for self-governance, even if tempered by the wisdom and resilience of Japanese leadership, could eventually annihilate them.
But the “Day of Resurrection” with which the film concludes is not an occasion for despair. Whether Yoshizumi, Marit, and their compatriots can repopulate the earth is irrelevant. The human race has evolved: its final survivors are gathered in love and companionship with a profound reverence for life. Virus consistently discards logic in favor of strategic sentimentality and authentic connections that are not suppressed or exploited by governmental control, and there are few moments in the history (and histrionics) of cinema that achieve the sensational overdetermination of Yoshizumi and Marit’s fateful reunion. This intensely satisfying payoff is the province of melodramas, which are marked by chance, coincidences, and sudden revelations that often derive their poignancy from the narration’s uneven distribution of knowledge: viewers know more than characters. Steve Neale gives the example of The Big Parade (1925): “The hero and heroine search frantically for one another amidst the crowded chaos of troops marching off to the front. Having just quarreled, each searches, unaware that the other is searching too. The spectator is both aware that they are looking for one another and aware that they are unaware” (7). Similarly, before Yoshizumi and Marit reunite against all odds, we know that each is alive and that one of them is determinedly trudging toward the other after a prolonged, desperate journey, heightening the poignancy of their eventual rendezvous. Yoshizumi’s pendant gleams, Marit’s face lights with ecstatic recognition, and they frantically bound toward one another after enduring years of separation in a harsh, desolate landscape and the belief that the other was long dead. I admit that my own heart swelled and I wiped away tears when they finally and rapturously embraced. Their implausible love story, which does not exist in Sakyo Komatsu’s original novel, is the foundation of Virus: Day of Resurrection’s melodramatic impact and power, reminding us that life itself is the driving force of our existence. Life – and the love that is its requisite foundation – are wonderful, no matter how dire the circumstances.
Works Cited
Brooks, Peter. The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess. Yale University Press, 1976/1995.
Freer, Scott. American Disaster Movies of the 1970s: Crisis, Spectacle, and Modernity. Bloomsbury, 2024.
Gledhill, Christine. Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Woman’s Film. British Film Institute Publishing, 1987/1992.
Gledhill, Christine. “Prologue: The Reach of Melodrama.” In Melodrama Unbound: Across History, Media, and National Cultures, edited by Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams. Columbia University Press, 2018.
Handigan, John. “Pulsing Cinema Podcast – Virus (1980).” Uploaded by Pulsing Cinema, 28 December 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLr6uoMvRxE
Kakoudaki, Despina. “Melodrama and Apocalypse: Politics and the Melodramatic Mode in Contagion.” In Melodrama Unbound: Across History, Media, and National Cultures, edited by Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams. Columbia University Press, 2018.
Kakoudaki, Despina. “Spectacles of History: Race Relations, Melodrama, and the Science Fiction/Disaster Film.” Camera Obscura, 17, no. 2, 2002, pp. 1-153.
Komatsu, Sakyō. Virus: The Day of Resurrection. 1964. Translated by Daniel Huddleston, Haikasoru, 2012.
McDonald, Keiko. “Kinji Fukasaku: An Introduction.” Film Criticism, 8, no. 1, 1983, pp. 20-32.
Neale, Steven. “Melodrama and Tears,” Screen, 27, no. 6, 1986, pp. 6-22.
Roddick, Nick. “Only the Stars Survive: Disaster Movies in the 1970s.” In Performance and Politics in Popular Drama: Aspects of Popular Entertainment in Theatre, Film and Television, 1800-1976, edited by David Bradby, Louis James, and Bernand Sharratt. Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Russell, Catherine. “Insides and Outsides: Cross-Cultural Criticism and Japanese Film Melodrama.” Melodrama and Asian Cinema. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Sontag, Susan. “The Imagination of Disaster.” 1965. In Science Fiction Criticism: An Anthology of Essential Writings, edited by Rob Latham. Bloomsbury, 2017.
Williams, Tony. “Doomsday Past, Present, and Future: Kinji Fukasaku’s Virus.” Asian Cinema, 19, no. 2, 2008, pp. 215-231.
Works Consulted
Mercer, John, and Martin Shingler. Melodrama: Genre, Style, and Sensibility. Wallflower Press, 2004.
Yacowar, Maurice. “The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre.” 1977. In Film Genre Reader IV, edited by Barry Keith Grant. University of Texas Press, 2012.
- Unfortunately, Yoshizumi’s character arc was not initially available to American audiences, as the film went straight to cable television in a butchered 108-minute version. Action star Sonny Chiba has a small role in the film, and in 2006 a “Sonny Chiba Action Pack” DVD, which includes the full 156-minute version with English translations for Japanese dialogue, was released. The complete version of the film is the subject of this analysis. [↩]
- We as viewers are aware that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Garland (Henry Silva), an obsessive war hawk who had demanded activation of the ARS throughout the entire MM-88 crisis, was finally able to act on his own as the last survivor at the White House. [↩]
