Movielogr

Magnitude 7.9 (1980)

Directed by Kenjirô Ohmori

Disaster

Most recently watched by sensoria

Overview

A large earthquake hits Tokyo, which was predicted by a seismologist but was ignored.

Length 102 minutes

Actors

Hiroshi Katsuno | Shuji Otaki | Yoshio Inaba | Eiji Okada | Mizuho Suzuki | Toshiyuki Nagashima | Yumi Takigawa | Shin Saburi | Kayo Matsuo | Tsutomu Yamazaki | Norihei Miki

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Date ViewedDeviceFormatSourceRating
07/02/2020TVBroadcastOther6 stars
 

Viewing Notes

Settling in for this via DKUTV. Let’s see if they can manage the broadcast without issues today. Curious which cut Josef has… guessing the shorter version. —> they played the longer 2:06 cut!

“A large earthquake hits Tokyo, which was predicted by a seismologist but was ignored.” geez does that ever still resonate now.

A little drama heavy with the relationship stuff and I didn’t like how they were using the disaster to reassess those feelings. But that 20 or so minutes of pure destruction is some great stuff and equally horrifying. Can’t even imagine being on a subway train in Tokyo and having a big earthquake hit. Some neat miniature work in there, too; that entire airplane sequence is bananas. This is a Japanese take on an Irwin Allen flick, which were so popular in the decade leading up to this film. The only thing missing was a truly all-star cast.

Ugh why did TMDB update the name from DEATHQUAKE? It’s like an The Asylum title way before The Asylum existed.

Comments

avatarsensoria
4 years ago

DEATHQUAKE is the world’s greatest title, not sure why anyone would repackage it under the title MAGNITUDE 7.9!

Those destruction sequences were awesome and terrifying. So glad I tuned in for this. I’d love to own this movie on Blu-ray.