Godzilla Minus One (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – Godzilla appears in a post WW2 Japan, which is at their low point at zero, and knocks the country down one to the negatives.

My Take – Indeed it is a great time to be a kaiju fan as Legendary‘s MonsterVerse continues to make a killing at the box office, with their latest Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) sitting at a comfortable $547.9 million worldwide currently. Yet considering the shifting tone of the series towards more camp and popcorn blockbuster vibes from director Gareth Edwards‘s 2014 approach has undeniably left Toho fans (like myself) a little aggrieved.

Fans who still consider the Ishirō Honda directed 1954 feature a genuine classic and a great film, not just a great “monster” film. Fans who still prefer the legendary Toho Studios produced Japanese ventures, particularly the Heisei era (1984–1995) for all the themes it incorporated. And though their approach to the King of Monsters’s return to feature film was met with initially mixed results, personally, I found Shin Godzilla (2016) to be weird and disturbing in all the right ways.

The end of last year, which marked 70 years after the release of the original film, saw the release of 37th film in the Godzilla franchise, 33rd for Toho, and the fifth film in the franchise’s Reiwa era, allowed the behemoth returns to his roots, once again become a destructive force of nature that once again served as an embodiment of Japan’s anxiety about nuclear weapons in the aftermath of World War II.

In the hands of writer-director Takashi Yamazaki, the resulting feature is rightfully a stirring spectacle that also contains a palpable emotional undercurrent, something that is clearly missing from the Hollywood productions. Dealing with some very serious topics, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, survivors guilt and the aftermath of war on civilians, and conflicting emotions around national pride and feeling betrayed by your government.

It’s a rare kaiju film that cares this deeply about the inner lives and motivations of the people scurrying out of the way of the monster’s ginormous thudding feet. Add to that the film contains some of the best Godzilla sequences ever put to screen. Backed by classic sounds design, masterful cinematography, and an original score, the visual update has indeed made him more memorable and menacing for the citizens of a distraught Japan.

As of today, the film has not just earned numerous accolades globally, including winning Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards, but has grossed $115.8 million worldwide on a modest budget of around $10–12 million, less than a tenth of the latest MonsterVerse release, not only making it the most successful Godzilla film ever to come out of Japan but also the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film of all time.

Beginning in 1945, the story follows Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a young kamikaze pilot, who lands his plane on a small Japanese base on Odo Island, feigning technical issues. However, lead mechanic Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) quickly deduces that the plan is fine, and that Kōichi is only faking the problems to avoid avoid flying on an inevitably deadly mission.

The same night, a large dinosaur-like creature, dubbed Godzilla by legends, emerges from the sea and wreaks havoc on the island encampment, killing everyone except for the mechanic and Kōichi, who froze in fear when called upon to unload his plane’s weapons on the beast. Plagued by shame and guilt, Kōichi is further distraught when he returns home to Tokyo, only to find his neighborhood reduced to rubble and both his parents killed.

Amid the wreckage, he begins supporting a young woman, Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe), whose parents also died in the bombing, and an orphaned baby, Akiko, whom she rescued, and the three become a kind of ad hoc family as Tokyo begins the painful process of reconstruction. While he finds employment aboard a minesweeper tasked with disposing of naval mines off the Japanese coast from the war.

Two years later, Godzilla, now mutated and empowered by the United States’ nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll, marks his return and destroys several ships en route to Japan. It’s only a matter of time before Godzilla has reached dry land, storming through the Tokyo neighborhood of Ginza while munching the cars of an elevated train and destroying everything in its way.

This is a brilliant setup for a period story that sees a country without the military might, technology and morale to face this new enemy. Without a doubt, director Yamazaki‘s efforts of reviving the Kaiju franchise is effortlessly brilliant and absolutely top-tier filmmaking with the origin story of the gigantic monster showing up off the shores of post WWII Japan as it engages a full-tilt invasion of Tokyo and its environs with atypical destruction and death.

Most surprisingly, Godzilla is actually terrifying in this. Throughout the film, but most especially in this first sea battle, the monster is rendered with a solidity that recalls the technique of early Godzilla films. Though he’s a CGI creation, his towering bulk and the craggy texture of his skin feel scarily palpable.

Here, director Yamazaki crafts his film with an eye towards ensuring that the action set pieces capture the right amount of awe-inspiring scope. Towering over mere mortals, Godzilla is a remorseless killing machine, its jagged dorsal plates cutting through the water like a shark’s fin – except infinitely more terrifying. With a deafening cry and an ability to blast powerful radiation rays from its mouth, the monster shows no mercy.

His script also reckons with the lasting effects of World War II in Japan, and while the nuclear mutation of Godzilla is part of the plot, the themes of the film are focused more on the Japanese government, including their failure to protect its citizens from this threat, as well as the oppressive imperial regime that pressured young men into suicide missions during the war. Unlike other Godzilla films I’ve seen, I cared intensely about the characters and their fates and was emotionally invested in the little found family they formed.

It helps that Ryunosuke Kamiki’s anguished, vulnerable performance is a crucial part of what makes his protagonist so memorable. The script allows him to fret about things other than radioactive reptiles: how to earn a living in a war-ravaged economy, for example, or whether he is ready to accept the love that Noriko and their adopted daughter are so eager to give him.

He is equally well supported by Minami Hamabe, who is the face the hope and positivity here. Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, Yuki Yamada, Kuranosuke Sasaki, and Munetaka Aoki also bring in excellent turns. On the whole, ‘Godzilla Minus One’ is an utterly fantastic rollicking spectacle that entertains on every level.