Series Report Card: Godzilla (2023)

37. Godzilla Minus One

Inspired by "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Takashi Yamazaki would begin to pursue filmmaking. This interest would soon lead him to extensive work in the special effects and commercial field. Yet Yamazaki's talent for combining special effects with sentimental stories would soon lead him to become one of the premiere blockbuster filmmakers in Japan. "Returner" was a huge domestic hit while "Always: Sunset on Third Street" won him critical respect, taking home the Japanese Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. The sequel to "Always" is really where we come into this story. That film opens with a fantasy sequence featuring Godzilla. This proved that Yamazaki is obviously a great lover of the King of the Monsters. He would further show his devotion to the monster by directing an amusement park attraction featuring the big guy, in-between other hits and award winners. 

The question must've been in the air: When will this guy get to direct a proper Godzilla movie? Well, when Toho announced Yamazaki would be making a giant monster movie for them, that seemed to seal the deal. After much speculation, the project would be revealed to be "Godzilla Minus One," the seventieth anniversary film for the franchise and the first live action, Toho-produced "Godzilla" movie since 2016's "Shin Gojira." Obviously, anticipation was running high but, defying the odds, "Minus One" has become an international success and probably the best reviewed Godzilla movie ever made. 

Beginning in the last days of World War II, the film follows Koichi, a kamikaze pilot who feigns a mechanical malfunction and lands his jet at Odo Island. That night, the island is attacked by a relic dinosaur that the natives call Godzilla. Only Koichi and one other man survive, leaving the boy with intense guilt over his perceived cowardice. He returns to a Japan left in shambles by the war, discovering his parents are dead. A young woman named Noriko, who has started taking care of a baby also orphaned by the bombings, soon begins to live with Koichi. They form an odd family unit, Koichi finding work as a minesweeper in the nearby oceans. That is when Godzilla, mutated into an unstoppable colossus by the atomic bomb testings, reappears. The massive beast soon attacks an unprepared Japan. Still processing his personal tragedies, Koichi joins a civilian run effort to stop the monster. 

"Godzilla Minus One" gains its title from its post-war setting, taking the series back past the chronological point it usually begins with. The title also refers to life in post-war Japan, a country brought beyond zero by the destruction reaped during the war. Godzilla showing up makes a very grave situation even bleaker. In such a hopeless situation, how could anyone find the will to survive? This is the script's central thesis. The characters in the film have lost their loved ones, their homes, and their sense of national pride. How do you keep going when you have so little left and a giant, radioactive dinosaur threatens to take even that away? Koichi contemplates suicide and, in a key homage to the original film, a mother grimly accepts her fate and grips her children as the monster approaches. "Godzilla Minus One" is all about the human drive to survive in the face of hopeless devastation, of people fighting just for the right to live their lives.

Yes, "Godzilla Minus One" is about a triumph of the human spirit. It's not subtle about these themes, characters being urged to simply "live" multiple times throughout. Yet Yamazaki's script is earnest. Much time is devoted to Koichi's survivors' guilt, showing how the events of the war still weigh on his conscience. Ryunosuke Kamiki's performance veers towards the melodramatic yet also gives the audience a keen understanding of where he's coming from. A sense of loss floats over much of the film and not just the main characters'. The loss of life and destruction around everyone is felt, allowing "Minus One" to more than earn its pathos. You're much more invested in someone surviving when how much they've lost is so apparent.

It's a touching human story, which is not something you necessarily expect to find in the 36th "Godzilla" movie. Even the best entries in this franchise have sometimes struggled to make their human narratives compelling in movies where the giant monsters are the main attraction. Yet Koichi and Noriko's tale is unusually involving. His moodiness and her impulsiveness, often manifesting as a mischievous and slightly childish attitude, play off each other nicely. Minami Hamabe's performance is deeply likable. It helps that the romantic tension between them always boils under the surface but rarely takes center stage, even if they are living in the same house and raising a child together. The film shows how much they care for each other more through what isn't said than what is. This makes the emotional bombshell of the middle act all the more impactful. You care about these two. You want to see them make it out of this. That investment eventually leads to a tear-jerking, cathartic display of emotion at the very end. 

That the movie's heartfelt story is so effective is partially because the filmmakers go to great lengths to ground things. Obviously, a ton of research was conducted to realistically capture the post-war era of Japan. Not just the devastation but also the ways people sought to rebuild. The movie seeks to place Godzilla within the realm of known historical events. Japan's lack of resources after the war is lingered on, as are the limits of the only recently established Self-Defense Force. The boats, tanks, and planes we see are leftovers from the imperial age. Douglas MacArthur and tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets place this story in a specific international, geopolitics landscape. As does Godzilla's mutation happening specifically during the Bikini Atoll bombings. You also see this specificity in Koichi's job as a minesweeper, placed on a rickety wooden boat to protect the future against the remnants of the recent past. 

And this is where "Godzilla Minus One's" most intriguing elements emerges. The Godzilla series — and all kaiju movies really — have always been indecisively torn between denouncing the horrors of war and flexing the strength of Japan's military. Godzilla symbolizes the annihilation of the nuclear bomb but the movies have always been filled with images of tanks and weapons marching off to face this threat. "Minus One" has some of that too. When an experimental aircraft prototype is unveiled in the last third, the camera lovingly lingers on its details. Yet an ambivalence over Japan's recent imperial past floats over the film. Most of the heroes are veterans, who see that their country's aggressive actions haven't gotten them anywhere. They are all eager to move on, to live their lives in peace. Koichi being a failed kamikaze pilot, and seeking to prove himself against the new threat that emerges, could make you think this is an unsavory story of fighting for a lost cause. To win back the glory that was lost when the emperor surrendered. And maybe it is. People who know more about Japanese culture — and Yamazaki's politics — might have greater insight into this. Yet "Godzilla Minus One" goes out of its way to distance itself from the terrible actions of the Japanese government during the war. The heroes are fighting for the people, fighting for each other, and not for a nationalistic goal. 

This sense of community, of people banding together during a time of great strife, drives much of the story. A scene devoted to scientists and engineers devising some unlikely scheme or gizmo to defeat Godzilla is a commonplace occurrence in these movies. And "Minus One" has a great one too, leading to the amazing visual of a giant dinosaur dropping and rising through the ocean at improbable speeds. However, the focus on people coming together to survive makes these moments far more meaningful. That the movie takes the time to develop Koichi's coworkers — including Hidetaka Yoshioka as Dr. Noda, the eccentric but lovable scientist of the group — makes these ideas all the more meaningful. "Minus One" builds towards images of many working together to save many more, with all the soaring emotions that implies. Yet it works. Maybe that does push a jingoistic message, of how the Japanese people are so capable that they don't need the government's help to defeat Godzilla. But I think the message of community, of people putting aside their differences and achieving great things for each other, is a more universal theme than that. 

That "Godzilla Minus One" manages to gift its story with a surprising amount of heart and nuance is great. But what about the most important element: Godzilla himself? Yamazaki's background in special effects is certainly on display here. Many have commented on how the movie looks far better than many recent Hollywood blockbusters despite the budget being significantly smaller. The interaction between the entirely CGI Godzilla and the real actors and environments are seamless. The Big G looks great. His design is far more traditional than "Shin Gojira's" radical reworking, looking like the classical Godzilla but having a bulkiness that emphasizes his sheer size and power. The reptilian feet and highly expressive face creates a version of the monster that allows for a degree of realism and the characterization we've come to expect from this character. The image of the scutes emerging from his tail and back as he charges up his atomic breath is certainly an eye-catching one.

Godzilla is never just a giant, radioactive dinosaur though. Over the years, he's been a spectre of nuclear annihilation, an angry god, a symbol of the chaotic environment, an entity of rage driven by the souls of the dead, and a big, scaly superhero. In "Minus One," Godzilla moves with a weighty, determined focus, that brings to mind an actor in a suit but also a creature totally determined to achieve his goal. And that goal is the righteous destruction of the cities of man. Godzilla's face is always sneering, his eyes glaring in rage, in "Minus One." This is a Godzilla that is supremely pissed off, making it all our problem. In the context of the end of the war, Godzilla becomes a symbol of those needlessly killed for the goal of nationalism and imperialism, a rage that knows no borders and is directed at everyone. To hear that Yamazaki was highly influenced by "GMK," which took a very similar approach to the kaiju king, is unsurprising.

As thrilling spectacle, "Minus One" also takes the series to heights it's rarely reached before. The sequence of Godzilla emerging from the depths and chasing after the humble wooden boat, seeming very small next to the massive monster, is incredibly intense. You get a keen sense of how totally unmatched our heroes are against this threat. The monster's march on Ginza probably features the film's most elaborate pyrotechnics. Yet this isn't just the kind of mindless destruction we see so often in Hollywood blockbusters. The chaos always has weight and meaning, the audience clearly understanding what is being lost. Yamazaki's visuals – of an atomic mushroom cloud looming over the city, of debris rushing backwards through the streets, or Koichi falling to his knees and screaming as black rain pours down around him – is powerful. We get a clear sense of the vastness of the destructive power on display here and what it means for those caught in the aftermath. 

Being the latest entry in such a long-running series, made by an obvious fan, “Godzilla Minus One” does feature a few homages to franchise history. A sequence where Godzilla attacks a train is clearly inspired by a similar moment from the original. Yet Yamazaki grounds the sequence even more, taking us inside the train as Godzilla lifts it into his mouth. That same sequence is also the first time the film drops the famous Akira Ifukuebe theme, which it held off on until that moment. Yet making the audience wait for the needle drop is worth it, adding to making this scene all the more powerful. The same is true of Ifukube's military march, which later pops up when the heroes are really mobilizing their efforts. These familiar tunes pair well with an original score that is driving and mysterious. 

Every time a new Toho “Godzilla” movie comes out, people like to say it's the best since the original. In the case of “Godzilla Minus One,” that might actually be true. Marrying a thoughtful and sentimental emotional story to an especially well done modern take on Godzilla action, “Minus One” proves to be a triumph. The film ends on an open-ended enough a note that a sequel could be possible and Yamazaki has expressed interest in it. It remains to be seen what direction the studio will take thing. I'm sure, considering the film's unprecedented box office success, a follow-up of some sort is likely. Whether the Reiwa series will go in a more serialized direction or continue to focus on letting auteurs do their own thing with the King of the Monsters, remains to be seen. Taken on its own, “Godzilla Minus One” is the perfect mixture of everything we expect from a Godzilla movie while also succeeding as a bold piece of filmmaking in its own right. [Grade: A]