The China Syndrome (1979)
Directed by James Bridges
While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.
10 connections found
View:
10 connections, in both directions
What critics compared The China Syndrome to
"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery," for example, feels like a dinner theater production of The China Syndrome, while "An Orison of Sonmi-451" borrows from V for Vendetta, Soylent Green and just about every other dystopian sci-fi flick this side of The Hunger Games.
In the 1970′s, styled to remind us of that era’s “paranoid cinema” films like “The Parallax View” and “The China Syndrome,” an investigative reporter (Berry) gets stuck in an elevator with an elderly scientist who gives her some important information about a nuclear facility.
And, somewhat akin to "The China Syndrome," it has the distinction of having history repeat itself right as it's released.
The China Syndrome…
I also had a strange fascination with films that dealt with those themes from the horrific presentations of the aftermath in the TV film, The Day After and the feature Testament to the dystopian depictions in Miracle Mile to the near-miss silliness of WarGames and the scarily timely docu-portrayal of a nuclear power plant accident in The China Syndrome.
Though the movie deals with the machinations of reporters and is being touted as the best journalism movie since "All the President's Men," it actually has far more in common with 1979's "The China Syndrome" (an executive at a nuclear facility publicizes dangerous practices with the help of a sympathetic TV journalist).
Advertisement
Of course, the best horror films have always mirrored real-life goings on but not since Three Mile Island obligingly blew up a week after "The China Syndrome" came out has reel life mirrored real life so closely.
"Michael Clayton" is styled as a throwback to such socially conscious 1970s morality plays as "The China Syndrome" and "The Parallax View."
The list of Academy Award-nominated names set a cultivated tone for a scathing corporate thriller that emanates from the same narrative petri dish that spawned films like "The Parallax View" and "The China Syndrome."
Rising from an early grave of negative pre-release publicity, director Marc Forster and producer-star Brad Pitt ’s much-maligned “World War Z” emerges as a surprisingly smart, gripping and imaginative addition to the zombie -movie canon , owing as much to scientific disaster movies like “The China Syndrome” and “ Contagion ” as it does to undead ur-texts like the collected works of George Romero .
“… director Marc Forster and producer-star Brad Pitt’s much-maligned World War Z emerges as a surprisingly smart, gripping and imaginative addition to the zombie-movie canon, owing as much to scientific disaster movies like The China Syndrome and Contagion as it does to undead ur-texts like the collected works of George Romero.
Let's hope this is no "The China Syndrome."
Advertisement
The final shot—no spoiler—constitutes an image, rather than a shot, much like the rumblings at the Three Mile Island reactor causing coffee in cups to slosh in “The China Syndrome”—as well as the crushing bulwark’s lightest invocation of its oozing religiosity.
The most famous incident, of course, was "The China Syndrome" coming out around the time of Three Mile Island.