Product Details

• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Dolby, Dubbed, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC, Import
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Japanese, Chinese, Thai
• Dubbed in: French
• Dimensions: .24 pounds
• Running time: 122 minutes

From Amazon.co.uk
James Bridges (Urban Cowboy, Bright Lights, Big City) directed this 1979 film that became a worldwide sensation when, just weeks after its release, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred. Jane Fonda (Klute, Julia) plays a television news reporter who is not taken very seriously until a routine story at the local nuclear power plant leads her to what may be a cover-up of epic proportions. She and her cameraman, played by Michael Douglas (Wall Street, American President), hook up with a whistleblower at the plant, played by Jack Lemmon (Save the Tiger, Missing). Together they try to uncover the dangers lurking beneath the nuclear reactor and avoid being silenced by the business interests behind the plant. Though topical, The China Syndrome (produced by Douglas) works on its own as a socially conscious thriller that entertains even as it spurs its audience to think. --Robert Lane

Amazon.com Essential Video
James Bridges (Urban Cowboy, Bright Lights, Big City) directed this 1979 film that became a worldwide sensation when, just weeks after its release, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred. Jane Fonda (Klute, Julia) plays a television news reporter who is not taken very seriously until a routine story at the local nuclear power plant leads her to what may be a cover-up of epic proportions. She and her cameraman, played by Michael Douglas (Wall Street, American President), hook up with a whistleblower at the plant, played by Jack Lemmon (Save the Tiger, Missing). Together they try to uncover the dangers lurking beneath the nuclear reactor and avoid being silenced by the business interests behind the plant. Though topical, the film (produced by Douglas) works on its own as a socially conscious thriller that entertains even as it spurs its audience to think. --Robert Lane

Review
Sharper and more focused than most of the catastrophe/conspiracy films to crop up in the late '70s, James Bridges' The China Syndrome benefits from strong performances from Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and (co-producer) Michael Douglas. The film's pronounced anti-nuclear message might have come across as preachy in the hands of a lesser director, but Bridges imbues the film with a sense of unrelenting tension and documentary-style realism. More than a mere indictment of nuclear power and its questionable safety practices, the film also presents a knowing look at hypocritical television news broadcasts and the suppression of information on all levels. In one of the more eerily unfortunate instances of cinematic timing, the Three Mile Island power plant disaster occurred only 11 days after The China Syndrome's release. ~ Matthew Doberman, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

Three Mile Island: A Warning
This movie came out a year before the incident at Three Mile Island but it is freakishly alike.

A news-reporter is making an item at a nuclear power plant and sees an incident happening right before her eyes. The camerman (Michael Douglas) tapes it all and gives to tape to the anti-nuclear people.
First the corperation does not want to come out and says nothing has happened. One of the people working at the plant (Jack Lemmon) get regrets and wants to come out. The movie has it's highpoint in the end, in the contral room of the plant...

It is a very important movie to show to people the dangers of nuclear power plants and especially the role of human error. Still topical after 25 years, a must-see

Toxic film
The acting was bad and the science was bad. If it weren't that Three Mile Island happened around that time, the film would have been an utter flop. Don't waste your time with this toxic lie.

A Thriller That Has Not Dated
THE CHINA SYNDROME is one of those rare films that has more than just highly competent acting, scripting, and directing going for it. Current events also pops up from time to time to remind us that the events on the screen fit only too carefully into the jigsaw puzzle of art imitiating life. Just a few weeks after this nuclear power plant disaster film was released, a real life and similar catastrophe happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. And then a decade later, a colossal meltdown at the Russian nuclear facility at Chernobyl again served as warning that if fallible human beings are permitted to design and run nuclear power plants, then the events of THE CHINA SYNDROME are just waiting to happen.

Director James Bridges pictures the fictional Ventana nuclear facility as an inevitable calamity to be. Jack Lemmon is shift supervisor Jack Godell, a man who is dedicated to the safety of the people of California. At first, he staunchly defends the integrity of his bosses who warn him that this plant must go online on time. Soon enough, with the help of television reporter Kimberly Wells, (Jane Fonda) and cameraman Richard Adams, (Michael Douglas) Godell discovers that safety has taken second place to corporate greed and the Almighty Buck. These three are horrified that the plant came THISCLOSE to an accident that might have poisoned the entire state for centuries. The final thirty minutes is a lesson to current directors about how to generate and maintain suspense and audience involvement without gratuitous sex or violence. Lemmon has never been better. Even his later Oscar for SAVE THE TIGER takes a back seat here. Fonda does well as she sets up the pace with a live interview with Lemmon that shows him both tongue tied and exasperated. In the hands of a lesser director, Lemmon might have sounded supremely confident and glib. Lemmon's inability to articulate was itself a tribute to his skill to communicate effectively even when he seemed not to. The closing moments of THE CHINA SYNDROME suggest that all that separates humanity from unimaginable disaster is the courage and wisdom of good company men like Jack Godell, who want only to be allowed to do their job without a board of directors pushing dollars over lives. During the twenty five years following the release of this film, repeated viewings have forced us to view its events under the constantly changing perspective of world events which ironically enough focus on terrorism as the cause of the next disaster. This film simply should not be missed.