Disaster movies became big in both Hollywood and Japan in the 1970s — an era of soaring gas prices, volatile exchange rates and a failed Republican presidency. Now, with history repeating itself (in spades), this much-derided genre is booming again.
Two of Japan's biggest disasters of the 20th century — World War II and the atomic bombings that ended it — have been reflected, not only realistically in war movies, but also symbolically in the Godzilla series — Japan's original diaster movies — whose title monster has been a stand-in for everything from fire bombings (that breath!) and earthquakes (that stomp!) to atomic blasts.
Even disaster films that seemingly have nothing to do with those long-ago events often echo them. In 2006's "Nihon Chinbotsu" ("Japan Sinks") — a remake of a 1973 film about the sinking of the Japanese archipelago due to a massive shift in tectonic plates. A submarine pilot who dives to his death in a desperate attempt to reverse the shift in a sub called the Wadatsumi (Ocean) — a reference to a famous collection of letters by college students who fought and died in the war.