#94: THE CHINA SYNDROME (1979)

 

THRILL SCALE 1-10

7

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Never

BEST SEQUENCE

A very early scene set in the control room of a nuclear power plant during a near disaster, and which sets into motion the events of the whole movie. It's tense and well acted, especially by Jack Lemmon.

BEST LINE

"Guess what! I've got a syndrome! And the only prescription is more China!" - Just kidding. This is a very good movie, and the script is great, it's just not very quotable.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

86%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"With gripping themes and a stellar cast, The China Syndrome is the rare thriller that's as thought-provoking as it is tense."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"A reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant."

THOUGHTS

• I don't know much about nuclear energy. I know it's been around for quite some time, and I believe it's relatively more sustainable than some other forms of power. I also know that it has caused some terrible disasters (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima to name a few)
• And I know that at this point nuclear energy has not killed me, and to the best of my knowledge it has not put me in harm's way. However, that's partly what makes this movie so unnerving. The filmmakers posit that we may all have been a lot closer to catastrophe than any of us realize, due to factors entirely beyond our control
• As mentioned above, early in the movie, we have a near nuclear disaster. This almost comes to pass because a needle on a gauge is stuck, and it becomes unstuck with a finger tap. Now, I have faith that safety measures and equipment standards have improved since 1979. But there's no possible way to account for every single contingency or circumstance, and there's especially no way to account for the ultimate fallibility of people. And I can certainly imagine how terrifying this film must have seemed back when it came out
• I mentioned in my last review that I had no idea if this movie was a disaster movie or an investigative thriller. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say, although spoiler alert, you have been warned, this is not a disaster movie. The plot does not deal with an actual nuclear disaster or the consequences of one. However, it does deal with the characters realizing how much more likely a disaster may be than they thought, and watching them decide how to handle this knowledge is, in my opinion, way more thrilling than an actual disaster movie would have been
• Incidentally, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with China. It takes place entirely in California. The title refers to the idea that in the case of a nuclear meltdown the core components of the reactor would have nothing to contain them, so they'd burn all the way down through the centre of the Earth and out the other side into China. Physically and geographically impossible, of course, but hey it's certainly an evocative way of describing it
• Some nuclear power plant details that I noticed from this movie: in a nuclear power plant if things go haywire, the actual technical term for an emergency shutdown is a SCRAM. Like that's actually what they call it with the utmost seriousness. There's something darkly hilarious about that. Also, the majority of the characters pronounce "turbine" as "turban," can't say I've ever heard that pronunciation before
• And we have the classic mispronunciation of "nuclear" as "nucular," although I think it's only Michael Douglas who says it, so maybe that's on him
• As a thriller this is very well made. The characters' motivations are compelling, our sympathies shift at points, and there's a very exciting character-driven climax. There are also some very effective car chase scenes - and they make sense in the context of the plot, even if this doesn't sound like a car chase-type film. Finally, I didn't even notice until reading about it after the fact, but this movie doesn't have a soundtrack. Any music we hear is diegetic, usually coming from car radios. It was a strong choice for this movie and it adds to the sense of realness and urgency

Up Next: Not only is it our first horror movie on the list, it's also a deeply influential film that firmly established the tropes for an entire genre: #93, Night of the Living Dead from 1968.