Sometime in the 21st century: The Cold War has reached its peak, and
even the smallest mistakes from one of the opponents is likely to set off
a nuclear war that will eventually annihilate the whole human
civilisation. Of course, this mistake is eventually made, and we see all
major capitals go up in atomic mushrooms ... This is the backdrop of the
lovestory of a young woman from a traditional happy family and a naval
radio operator who's also the lodger at her parents' house. It takes the
two of them forever to ask her father to give him her daughter's hand in
marriage, but once dad has done so, the radio operator is called back to
the sea - while on land, everything is blown to Kingdom Come, and thus
humjankind is almost erradicated, and the young radio operator can never
hope to find his bride-to-be again. There are two sides to this
film: On one hand it's a pacifist statement that tries to get across its
anti-war message via a story of the fate of the little people - but
while an anti-war message is always a good message as such in not only my
eyes, its delivery leaves much to be desired: The whole love story of the
radio operator and his girl is never properly married to the
matter-of-fact style of the war story, which in turn fails to serve as its
broader context. On the other hand though, if you're into detailed
miniature sets being blown up and destroyed, this is totally a film for
you as this is somethinjg special effects man Eiji Tsuburaya simply excels
in, and he seems to have a fascination for it to that's somehow
infectuous. Now of course, explosions don't make a movie, and to get to
them you even have to sit through a whole lot of ill-conceived plot that's
somehow on the boring side, but at least the effects are indeed worth a
look.
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