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the audience applauded

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

excerpt, full review at my location - Named after the Tokyo Fire Department code that indicates the discovery of survivors in need of rescue, Nobuo Mizuta's latest offering is inspired by a real-life rescue event that occurred following the Chuetsu earthquake of 2004. Ambitiously comparing itself to The Towering Inferno (1974), while at the same time allowing expectations to drop by throwing Japan Sinks (2006) into the mix, 252: Sign Of Life still has its work cut out, so will it sink or swim?Anyone who can appreciate a studied, haunting portrayal of mankind's struggle against its self-destructive tendencies is better off watching something else. 252: Sign Of Life is more disaster than movie, disguising its lacklustre script with impressive effects but little else.

NTV's 55-year Anniversary Project, "252" is about rescue of trapped survivors of a storm that hits Tokyo.The cast is truly all-star, including many cameo/special appearances. SFX/CG is excellent for Japanese standards, and it's easy to tell they put a lot of effort in production of this movie.However, as a film, I felt there were WAY too many close-calls and deliberate plot devices (like how one of the guy just happened to be carrying a water-purifier that could be used as a pump in surgery) that fueled the implausibility of the plot. The leading actor Itou Hideaki's acting was a disaster as a usual, and it was too over-dramatized and cheesy for my tastes.I guess this is expected of a blockbuster natural disaster movie though. Even with all the aforementioned flaws, it kept me interested to the end, and it was somewhat inspirational.I can't help but to compare this movie with "Day After Tomorrow". Both water-based natural disaster films, but it amazed me how "Day After Tomorrow" was better than "252" in every single aspect, from story, acting, CG, to music. I was disappointed that even with 55-year Anniversary Project budget and 5 years of advantage, Japanese computer graphics in 2009 movies are still way behind the 2004 US movies. A lot of people despise Hollywood films, but movies like this really makes me appreciate the American blockbuster movies.

While a movie like this would likely contain a tragedy of epic proportions and a celebration of the human spirit, one can't help but to laugh at its missteps, overwrougt melodrama, and sheer ridiculousness of an ending that probably insults the professionalism of the uniformed group it wanted to put in good light. It becomes an unintentional comedy of errors that just makes you shake your head knowingly that it could have been something more interesting to begin with.252: Signal of Life is just that, a code that rescue forces (or at least in Japan) use to inform everyone of survivors, galvanizing resources and to propel some lung bursting morale and adrenaline to rescuers who are risking life and limb for strangers that they do not know. But first they have to get their original mission statement through to the top brass whose concern is for the safety of the men under them, and risk taking becomes a tedious exercise, frustrating to the men all eager to perform a job well.I thought this tussle against the backdrop of an ongoing disaster would serve as an interesting fuel for thought, especially meaningful when it tries to examine how these folks put others above self, and family beneath others at times, and had an extreme opportunity to debate over self-preservation, and to wonder the immense courage that it takes for one to do just that. Instead, we get melodrama, plenty of tears and frustrations lashed out amongst colleagues, friends and strangers, that it becomes too tiring, and most of the time for nothing.For actor Hideaki Ito, one who has cut his teeth in disaster-rescue flicks like Umizaru and its sequel, his role here as ex-rescuer Yuji Shinohara might seem like a walk in the park. If not for his brooding of a sin of the past, and his good looks, he's an extremely cardboard character, which is what most of the other characters in the film are made of. Only Ayane Omori who stars as his deaf-mute daughter Shiori stole the show at every scene she's in, though the good work was destroyed by the story which decided to exploit that character for some Kleenex moment. I can go on about other characters in the film that continue to be unappealing such as Sachiko Sakurai's very teary turn as Mrs Shinohara, but the one which takes the cake, and probably chief villain for her incompetence, is Yu Kashii's Saki Umino the weather girl who has really poor forecasting skills.The filmmakers here lacked the courage to have people bumped off. Not the anonymous extras that are in the background (those die en masse), but each deadly scenario the leads got put through, they lacked the confidence to shut the door on the characters, making it again highly repetitive in crafting how one survives death defying moments due to sheer luck, but only after some moments of unnecessary tension that the same trick just becomes overused by the time the third scenario rolls around. What's more of a sin was how the finale was one really draggy affair, allowing opportunities for more chest-thumping, affirmative actions like nodding, saluting, shouting, crying, and just milking all that's worth from an 18 minute window when the eye of the storm passes by.Speaking of which, the special effects turned out to be less than spectacular. It showed off some eye-popping moments of gigantic tidal waves enveloping the streets of Tokyo, but it dried off really fast through some awesome drainage that the city has in its streets and underground network. Visually, it was more interesting to see how all the extras in each scene just run about the set in the background trying to look busy and act with a sense of urgency, while the cast in the foreground are feeling anything but that. As I mentioned earlier the finale was overwrought with cheesy melodrama that unnecessary dragged out the ending, but the moment which took the cake was how hundreds of rescuers would just gather round and do nothing but the care-bear-stare. Powerful stuff that.252: Signal of Life had moments where it could have struck a fine balance in presenting an action-packed flick if it could have tightened up some of the incessant repetition (like how long it took for massive floodwaters to fill up a subway station, and there are only so many ways for extras to find themselves facing with a gush of water), and to have given itself enough time to explore the human dilemma of self-preservation versus the call of duty. Instead it became an unnecessary comedy filled with cardboard yet invincible characters.

The title reads 'two-five-two,' what is described in the film as an SOS call used by rescue teams, in Japan. Yes, this is a Japanese disaster flick, and what a great reminder of how great Asian cinema is. It is set during a destructive cyclone that tears up Tokyo City and leaves a small group of strangers trapped in a subway station. Nothing that Hollywood hasn't come up with, so far. Yet there are key differences that raises the film from the genre that is often dependent on state-of-the-art special effects and at least one famous heroic face. The film bravely begins dramatically - the opening prelude in the trapped subway station is among the more gruesome parts of the film. Cut to two days before the cyclone hits we are given some introduction to our heroes, but there is a large absence of the light-weight character development. From a man struggling to care for his loving wife and deaf daughter; a courageous but naive rookie fire-fighter; and a Korean girl who's just received news of a family tragedy. The characters aren't given the dignified introduction we're used to, instead, we are immediately brought into their reality. They don't need to be fleshed out for us, because we already know who they are because we can recognise them. Then comes the cyclone. Hails, the size of soft-balls smash windows and crush heads as panicking crowds race underground for shelter, which turns out to be the worst possible idea as a flood quickly follows. Yet the camera only briefly depicts the destruction of buildings but is centered on a little girl who is separated from her mother amidst the mayhem of society in total panic. So there we have the first ten minutes - it is pretty uncomfortable viewing. The rest of the film is a series of episodes of various crisis - both mortal and emotional. There are two additional survivors - a med-school drop-out who doesn't care about anyone, especially himself. And then there is a "salary man" who provides a bit of lightness to the tension in the trapped station, but not enough to be called comic-relief - he responds the same way the viewers do and through his simplicity we are able to access the intensity of the situation. The film drops a little after it is revealed our main hero is an ex rescue-team member with a traumatic memory. Nothing wrong with it except its too convenient -especially for a film that steered clear from clichés up to that point. It is a small detail that the audience feels they have to forgive. Not a masterpiece of Asian cinema, but a noble recent example nonetheless. A well crafted suspense yarn, and a moving drama about family and survival supported by a powerful cast - it has all the ingredients of a great disaster flick. YH