The China Syndrome

The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film directed by James Bridges and written by Bridges, Mike Gray, and T. S. Cook. The film stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas (who also produced). It follows a television reporter and her cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. "China syndrome" is a term that describes a fictional result of a nuclear meltdown, where reactor fuel melts through reactor containment structures and into the underlying earth, "all the way to China".