The World Sinks Except Japan (2006)

Memorable, crazy movie

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

...because when they start to be funny, it turns out to be boring. Or, as in this case, simply disgusting. The plan was to mock the Japanese nationalism and xenophobia, but I actually had trouble noticing the line between a satire and the real thing in this movie. The general idea is highly attractive, I readily admit, but the script writers didn't make it work at all. The director didn't do the good job either. The non-Japanese actors are simply awful, it looks more amateurish than anything else. Any good points? Racking my head to find any, but the best moments gave me just a faint smile, not a laugh. Anybody lured by a good title, stay away from this movie.

This movie look like a pathetic nationalist wet dream. It's like if the black van driving crowd got drunk and made a movie about Japanese superiority. The usual Z-Team of foreigner-clown of the Japanese TV are here. Even the god-awful Dave Spector felt obliged to be part of this bowel-movement level of a movie. It's the standard crap, foreigners commit all the crimes, if you let them in you will get robbed everyday, only the Japanese a worthy people, only Japanese housewife know how to cook, foreign women are pantie sniffing slackers... In most of the first world countries there's laws against these kind of xenophobic propaganda.

Seriously this is supposed to be a parody of the sinking of japan. Well parodies are supposed to be funny and this sure as hell wasn't. The steriotypes were not funny and at times either mind numbingly stupid or just plain offensive. The story and plot if their is even supposed to be one, was hardly followed through and when it was over i was left pondering if the director really wanted this to be a parody or just some dumb drama flick, with dumb special effects and even dumber acting And i'm still wondering who the hell some of these no name actors who played the foreigners came from, since I've never seen them before in any movie till now. I hope this doesn't become a trend now in Japanese cinema where they have to rely on cheesy special effects and no actual story to make their films watchable. Its not working to well for Hollywood after all. Oh yeah and i absolutely despised the Japanese nationalism in this flick. Maybe they weren't taking it seriously in japan, but i think to a lot of non Japanese your gonna be very offended by some of the things they say and do to the foreign refugees in this film. Personally i think japan is setting itself up to be hated with films like these.Overall an incredible waste of time to watch.

A hilarious film adaptation by Kawasaki Minoru of a parody of the famous 1970s novel Nihon Chinbotsu. Nihon Chinbotsu is the story of the Japanese people losing their homeland and being dispersed throughout the world. Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu is the opposite: the whole world sinks except Japan. The world's survivors all scramble on the small little archipelago occupied by the xenophobic Japanese. With Team America-like line of characters, all extreme stereotypes of their nation, you can't stop laughing. No one escapes the directors critique, from the traditional Japanese guy (who takes advantage of the situation and eats whale), to the Chinese/Korean leaders who suck up to Japan's Prime Minister, to the American Secretary of Defense who regrets not having started a coup d'etat in Japan, and etcetera.Of course, the story is just incredible. Of course there are going to be those who are going to criticize this movie saying the science behind the disaster is unrealistic, the economic situation of the foreigners would not happen, and that's fine. People who are going to criticize this movie for reasons like that just don't get that they need to suspend their disbelief when watching comedies like this one who's primary focus is not to tell a believable story but a ridiculously funny one.Then there may be those who claim this is a nationalistic film, but again, those people are the same people who thought Team America was a nationalistic film. They just didn't get the masochistic humor. This movie is critical of not just its own nationality but even the movie itself ("I don't like Japanese movies, they look so cheap").Finally, this movie will shock you with a surprisingly funny, yet touching end (well, as touching as a comedy can get). I wouldn't say it's a must watch, but it's a good complement to Nihon Chinbotsu as well as being a good stand alone film as well.