 • Japan • 1980 • 156m •    • Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku. • Starring: Masao Kusakari, Tsunehiko Watase, Isao Natsuyagi, Shin'ichi Chiba, Kensaku Morita, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Haruki Kadokawa, Tadashi Takatsuki, Takeshige Hatanaka, Chikara Gonoue, Eiji Yuki, George Kennedy, Bo Svenson. • Music by: Kentaro Haneda, Teo Macero.
      A double disaster film with both an American and a Japanese cast, Virus presents some pretty wild probabilities to viewers. First of all, a virus has been developed that gets loose and starts to destroy humanity on a grand scale. The only people who are remotely safe are a group of eight hundred men and eight women on Antarctica. Since the President of the United States warns them by radio communications not to accept anyone into their area who has been contaminated, the men and women are somewhat prepared. That does not mean they are ready to handle the crew of a Russian submarine that seeks refuge with them. The second disaster is nuclear, and part of the suspense lies in whether or not it will be ultimately averted -- and who, if any, will survive all this.
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I saw the original one in cinema when it first came out in 1980 in Japan. Great adaptation of an original novel by Sakyo Komatsu. It was an epic of more than two hours, which shook my youthful soul with the power of love.
I was flabbergasted by how this epic was mutilated when I saw it again in video in USA. The one you can see in USA has no resemblance to the original version, where, I recall, much longer portion of the film was spent describing "the walk". Also all the episodes in Japan were omitted, so most of the Japanese characters in Antarctica made no sense. In a nutshell, the "American" version only talks about American people, so there is really only half the story left in the film. If you can get the original version, it is a very emotional film, 810.
Review by ay9a from the Internet Movie Database.
