The Americans butchered it. If you see the original Japanese movie you will realize you are watching one of the most incredible apocalyptic flicks ever made. The shocking imagery and the setting is far more relevant to our world now than it was then and it almost seems comical some times how prescient the film was about the last days.
The final scene with the two mutant children fighting in radioactive ash over a worm of some kind was really disturbing. Toho should be very proud of the original, it is one of the best things they ever made.
I don't know how the author of the script knew what our days would be like but it's an uncanny look at the future in the 1970's that was revealed to be spot-on for the 2020's. The gender bending youth who literally become obsessed with suicide by jumping their motorbikes off a cliff into the ocean is just too close to the bone to right now.
P. S. The score by Tomita is possibly the best music score I ever heard in a 1970's film. It is sad, evocative, dramatic, heart rending and exciting at just the right times and with just the right emphasis. It is never maudlin and seems to draw forth the very essence of what is meant by an end-time eschatology.
The final scene with the two mutant children fighting in radioactive ash over a worm of some kind was really disturbing. Toho should be very proud of the original, it is one of the best things they ever made.
I don't know how the author of the script knew what our days would be like but it's an uncanny look at the future in the 1970's that was revealed to be spot-on for the 2020's. The gender bending youth who literally become obsessed with suicide by jumping their motorbikes off a cliff into the ocean is just too close to the bone to right now.
P. S. The score by Tomita is possibly the best music score I ever heard in a 1970's film. It is sad, evocative, dramatic, heart rending and exciting at just the right times and with just the right emphasis. It is never maudlin and seems to draw forth the very essence of what is meant by an end-time eschatology.