252 Sign of Life Review

The title of this film refers to the emergency signal used by Japanese fire fighters, basically their equivalent of an SOS signal. When a massive typhoon hits Tokyo, causing enormous hailstones to rain down on the city before a huge tidal wave swamps the streets, hundreds of commuters are killed in an unprecedented natural disaster. Former fireman Yuji and his deaf daughter Shiori are trapped in the subway after it floods, along with a precious few other survivors. Yuki must utilise his survival skills to ensure his small band stays alive long enough to be rescued from the unstable underground prison they find themselves in. Meanwhile, Yuji’s former colleagues above ground work tirelessly to rescue the survivors.

252: Sign of Life is portentous, over-long, predominantly dull and very cheesy. There’s supposedly a central debate about to what extent rescues services should put themselves at risk to help others, but the arguments are uninvolving and lost in the overwhelming tedium. There’s no sense that any of the characters are ever in any real danger – anyone who has a line to speak survives; it’s hard to care about any of them when the film plays it this safe. There’s a passing resemblance to the disaster movies of Roland Emmerich (indeed, the scenes of Tokyo being destroyed do look rather like a monster-less Godzilla movie) and whilst he is hardly a creative genius, at least there’s a sense of fun and entertainment in his films, which is shockingly absent in 252.

True, the scenes of destruction are quite impressive visually and the film’s one moment of invention and interest is done well – an electric aquarium pump is repurposed in an intelligent manner – but this is far too little to recommend the film by. The killing blow comes with its none more melodramatic ending, which takes things so far over the top, it was actually very funny – including, but not limited to, a fireman tearfully saluting his former ally Yuji, emerging from the earth, covered in mud and blood, carrying a comrade on his shoulders, all in glorious slow motion, backed by quivering strings. That scene was wholly, if unintentionally, hilarious, but far from a reason to see this film. When there’s a whole world of excellent cinema out there to explore, it’s impossible to recommend films as dull and listless as this one.