Godzilla Minus One, like the original and 1998 films, there's little that can be said about it that hasn't already been said a thousand times. It's a testament to the timelessness of this incredible franchise, still able to leave audiences in awe after seven decades, a modern masterpiece, the likes of which hasn't been seen for years. Godzilla Minus One showed the world that Godzilla is not only still relevant, but still capable of being art, and while some have gotten the wrong idea from this film, I think it's safe to say that it was a major win for Toho, the fans and the franchise. If you still haven't watched it for whatever reason, the film has been streaming on Netflix for several months, both in colour and in black in white, so there's no reason not to find out just why this film took over the world last December. It should go without saying that I love this film, and as it's Godzilla's seventieth anniversary, I think that's as good an excuse as any to talk about my favourite film of the past few years again.
Here's what you need to know; after coming home to find his entire life was wiped out in the Tokyo air raids, disgraced Kamikaze pilot, Koichi Shikishima is trying to rebuild his life and leave the nightmares of the War in his past, now raising his adoptive daughter with his partner, Noriko. But while Shikishima and his newfound family struggle to survive in post-war Japan, a demon from his past, baptised in the fire of the atomic bomb has returned to destroy his life just as it did during the War. But is this the apocalypse it seems, or is this Shikishima's only chance to redeem himself and be free from the ghosts of his past.
Godzilla Minus One really knows how to start strong, opening with a brief but efficient introduction to Shikishima and Tachibana before Godzilla explodes onto the scene and starts causing trouble. In just ten minutes, the film flawlessly establishes Shikishima's character and sets him on his personal journey, while also providing one of the most intense moments in any Godzilla film. Shikishima, a Kamikaze pilot, lands at a repair base on Odo Island, claiming to be having mechanical problems with his plane. After Tachibana, Odo Island's lead mechanic, subtly accuses Shikishima of fleeing his duty as a Kamikaze, we cut to that night as the sirens start to blare and something big starts making its way up the beach. When a nearby guard tower lights up the beach, it reveals a massive dinosaur that immediately charges the tower, smashing it to pieces. The mechanics run for cover and Shikishima is asked to used the guns on his plane to kill the creature, but he freezes up, too terrified to pull the trigger. As the monster gets closer, one of the mechanics loses his nerve and shoots at it, sending it into a frenzy. Shikishima and Tachibana watch in horror as the monster massacres the mechanics, and when morning comes, they are the only two left alive. plenty of Godzilla films use ensemble casts to tell their stories, but Minus One does the exact opposite, instead opting to tell an intensely personal story of one man's trauma and redemption, and it's clear that the film's writer and director, Takashi Yamazaki, spent a lot of time tinkering with his script to make it as tight and efficient as possible.
Minus One doesn't have a large, spread out cast of characters, it's Shikishima's story and is told entirely from his perspective, as he tries to rebuild his life after the war, and were this written by a lesser writer, it probably wouldn't work, instead, Minus One is one of the most emotionally investing films I've ever seen. Like with all the best Godzilla films, there is more to the story with Minus One. The film has a strong, clear and flawlessly executed message which it conveys through the character of Shikishima and his conflict with Godzilla. After Godzilla kills the Odo Island mechanics, Tachibana blames Shikishima for their deaths, giving him a wallet full of family photographs taken from their bodies as a reminder of his cowardice. Shikishima carries the wallet with him for the entire film, as while the story is outwardly about his redemption, on a deeper level, it explores themes of guilt, trauma and the value of human life. Shikishima's personal journey is not only gripping and incredibly satisfying, it has deep thematic undercurrents that help to push the film's excellent story to it's epic conclusion. All of this hinges on Shikishima as a character though, so he needs to work for the film to work, fortunately, he works. Minus One does a fantastic job of getting us on the guy's side, we understand what he's going through right from the start, and can see how it's negatively effecting his life.
At the same time, he's building relationships with the new friends and family he has found after the war, and it's here as well, that Minus One really knocks it out of the park. No one in this film is unimportant or forgettable, everyone Shikishima meets plays a role in his redemption ark, like his Minesweeper friends; Doc, Captain and the Kid, who start out as comedic side characters, but quickly get swept up in the adventure and accompany Shikishima all the way to the end, being with him for every step. There's Shikishima's neighbour, Sumiko, who starts out antagonistic, but eventually comes round to becoming part of his adoptive family and helping him get through his darkest hour. In the film's second half, we meet Hotta, an ex-Imperial Navy captain who takes command of the mission to kill Godzilla, and who manages to galvanise the broken men of Japan to once again fight for their nation. A character we meet early on is Tachibana, the mechanic who blames Shikishima for the deaths of his men, and who becomes a vital component of his redemption in the end. But the three that really drive this film is Shikishima himself, his partner, Noriko, and their adoptive daughter, Akiko. Shikishima is a survivor of the War who's found that the War followed him home, his story is one of trauma and guilt, and his journey sees him going into battle with his own personal demons, literally in this particular case.
Minus One portrays his mental struggle perfectly, a disgraced Kamikaze who honestly believes that he doesn't deserve to live, having survived all the death and destruction of the War when so many others, including people he could have saved, weren't so lucky. What makes this portrayal of post-war trauma so perfect is how Godzilla is tied into it, as by having Godzilla be the one responsible for Shikishima's trauma and guilt, it not only uses Godzilla as a metaphor for the War, which we'll look at more later, but it also makes the conflict personal. Shikishima's quest for redemption will bring him into conflict with Godzilla, intrinsically linking their fates, or put more simply, the only way Shikishima can find peace is by killing Godzilla. Shikishima is essentially having his soul pulled in two directions; his guilt and self-hatred from not stopping Godzilla on Odo Island is pulling him into darkness, while Noriko tries to pull him into the light, and it's in the scenes where these opposing forces clash that Minus One really hits it's mark. There are moments in the film where Shikishima completely breaks down, collapsing into despair and wondering if he even did survive the war, and isn't simply living out a delusion in his head while he lies dead on Odo Island, and not only are these scenes unbelievably dark, but they are devastating to watch for the audience, who are already more than invested in seeing Shikishima live. Now is the time for me to start gushing about how much I love Noriko, so apologies in advance.
If Godzilla is Shikishima's demon, dragging him into the darkness, Noriko is his angel, trying desperately to pull him back into the light. Like Shikishima, Noriko lost everything during the War, now having no one to look after her and Akiko, so when Noriko finds Shikishima, she immediately latches onto him and from there, she becomes one of the most likable characters in any Godzilla film. Her outlook on life and the War is almost the exact opposite of Shikishima's, an outlook she relentlessly tries to drill into him, more for his sake than hers. It's Noriko's belief that everyone who survived the War deserved to live, and that continuing to live is the most important thing any of them can do. She believes above anything else that her life has value, and that continuing to live is how she can honour her parents and build a better future for Akiko. This is, of course, in stark contrast to Shikishima, who hates himself and believes his life has no value, in spite of all that he has achieved since the War, therefor, Noriko is left to try to maintain the balance in his life. While the romantic aspect of their relationship is downplayed, it is still used effectively in many moments, ranging from the incredibly cute moment where Noriko says Shikishima will never find a wife with her around, to the incredibly dark moment where Shikishima admits that he wanted to marry her, but never did because "[his] war isn't over yet." All of this comes to a head in one of the most effective sequences in any Godzilla film, that, of course, being the Ginza attack.
After finally opening up to Noriko about his past, Shikishima finally feels that he's ready to move on with his life, at last allowing himself to embrace what he has and to forgive himself for what he did, and then Godzilla rocks back up and completely destroys his entire life. The scene where Noriko apparently dies is insane; a moment of shock that slowly and quietly builds into a dreadful realisation as Shikishima begins to understand what has happened, and as Godzilla leaves and a black rain begins to fall around him, all Shikishima can do is scream. With Noriko gone, there is nothing left to pull Shikishima back from the darkness and he is overtaken with an obsessive desire to kill Godzilla. As the plan to defeat Godzilla is drawn up, it slowly becomes apparent that Shikishima doesn't intend to survive the battle. Noriko's death shatters Shikishima's desire to carry on living, finally giving him a chance to kill himself and to embrace his duty as a Kamikaze, not for honour, but for love. What it also does is bring her importance to the film's themes and story into laser focus for the audience, it makes us realise what she had come to mean to us as well. At the core of this story is a personal journey for redemption, but as is to be expected, that's not the whole picture as in a grander sense, Godzilla Minus One uses it's story as a vehicle to explore post-war trauma. Just like the original Godzilla, Minus One uses it's story to delve into themes of war and humanity from a distinctly Japanese perspective.
Where Minus One differs, however, is in it's angle of attack; while the original used it's ensemble cast to tackle it's themes in a more general sense, Minus One zeroes in on the personal aspect, depicting Japan as a nation of broken men who are desperate for the chance to make a difference. Their defeat at the end of the War was a major cultural shock to Japan, seeing their great empire torn apart and their nation brought to it's knees. Millions were dead and plenty more, disgraced in failure, were coming home to find that they had nothing left. But as with any conflict, when the men come home, the war tends to come home with them, leaving them to struggle with readjusting to normal life, while also dealing with the memories of their nightmarish experiences. When looked at from this perspective, Godzilla becomes a lot more than a radioactive monster, just as in 1954, he is the ghost of the Pacific War, a walking manifestation of all the cruelty and pain of the conflict, coming ashore to inflict suffering on a struggling people. But instead of being a cautionary tale about the cruelty of nuclear war, Minus one is ultimately a far more optimistic tale of finding peace, moving on from the horrors of the past and working toward a brighter future. In the film's finale, it's not the government or the army that goes into battle against Godzilla, it's people, ordinary men who come together again to fight for their country, and as Noda spells out in his fantastic speech, this war won't be like the last one, it's not a fight to the death, but a fight for the future, promising them that not a single life will be lost this time.
Back on the more personal side, Shikishima seeks out Tachibana, the lead mechanic from Odo Island, to ready a fighter plane for him, he intends to kill himself and needs Tachibana because he knows he won't stop him. Tachibana was the one that gave him the wallet full of photos, he's the only man in Japan that hates him as much as he hates himself, but it's through Tachibana that Shikishima finally finds his peace. When he sees that Shikishima still has the wallet, as well as Akiko's drawing of him, her and Noriko, he understands that Shikishima is ready, and chooses to forgive him, ordering him to live. During the battle, Shikishima's successfully Kamikaze's into Godzilla to all of his friends' horror, only for it to be revealed that his plane had an ejector seat, finally, after two years of wanting to die, Shikishima is finally able to live, having vanquished his demon and earned Tachibana's forgiveness. The film isn't done either, as after finally killing Godzilla and deciding to live, Shikishima learns that Noriko is still alive, rushing to her hospital room with Akiko and breaking down in tears at her bedside as she asks him if his war is finally over. Godzilla Minus One is full of moments like this, incredibly powerful moments that hit you right in the feels, but while such moments in the original Godzilla were heart-breaking, and there are definitely some of them here too, some of Minus One's strongest moments are absolutely wonderful.
The film is an emotional rollercoaster to watch, delving deep into the blackest pits of sadness and hatred, before confidently soaring back out into the light, paying off it's central conflict in a beautifully warm and uplifting way that feels almost uncharacteristic for a Godzilla film, even with some of the ending's more ominous implications taken into account, like the possibility that Noriko will still die of radiation poisoning or worse, or that Godzilla will one day return. There is always so much to talk about in Minus One before we even get to the Big Guy, but even out of all the other Godzilla film's I've watched, this Godzilla remains one of my favourite incarnations. We've already looked at what Godzilla represents in this film, but we haven't talked about the monster himself, and as usual, there's a lot to say. This Godzilla shares his origins with the original Godzilla; an ocean-dwelling dinosaur turned into a monster by atomic testing, but taking a page from Godzilla vs King Ghidorah's book, Minus One introduces us to a pre-baptism Godzilla, one that's smaller and faster but still has all the attitude. Based on the opening scene with Godzilla, you might think that this Godzilla is also going to have a sympathetic edge buried somewhere underneath the malice and monstrousness, but you would be wrong because this Godzilla is evil. By presenting the monster from Shikishima's perspective, there is nothing in the way of curiosity, pity or admiration like you would get from Dr Yamane from the original film, instead, Godzilla is the problem, a massive, radioactive arsehole that keeps showing up and ruining Shikishima's life.
By thematically weaving Godzilla and Shikishima's stories together and making the conflict personal, you come to hate Godzilla. When he appears, it's not exciting or epic in the way other Godzilla films are, it's terrifying because our heroes are in constant danger whenever he's around. Like the original film, this film draws sharp attention to the human cost of his attacks, and like that film, Godzilla doesn't just walk around causing collateral damage, he's on the attack, tearing apart buildings, throwing around train cars and squashing people underfoot. But the moment that really sells this Godzilla as irredeemably evil is, of course, the Ginza sequence, where his atomic breath is shown in all it's glory, and where Noriko seemingly dies. Just minutes before, the streets of Ginza were full of panicked civilians, running for their lives from Godzilla, then only moments later, black rain is falling on the desolate, flattened remains of the city, seemingly no one is left alive, save for Shikishima, who crumbles into despair as he realises his failure has now taken the woman he loved. In that moment, you hate Godzilla, you want him to die for what he's done, you want to see Shikishima get his revenge, even knowing that getting his revenge will most likely kill him too. Godzilla Minus One manages to make Godzilla fit so perfectly into a drama about survivor's guilt that it doesn't feel like a Godzilla film at times, but as you can probably work out, that doesn't mean that he doesn't deliver. The sequences where Godzilla attacks are all fantastic, after giving us a terrifying and vicious appetiser in the film's opening, our first course is a tense chase as Godzilla pursues Shikishima and his friends at sea, slowly catching up as they desperately try to repel him with mines.
The finale of this sequence is show-stopping as an Imperial Navy warship, the Takao, arrives just in time and engages Godzilla, only to get mauled when their first barrage only pisses him off. When their second barrage sends him tumbling back into the sea, he obliterates them from below with his atomic breath, emerging from the smoke and debris to roar triumphantly before making his getaway, his face and chest covered in severe burns from the blast. Godzilla set piece number two is Ginza which is expectedly awesome, though is a surprisingly brief sequence compared to his Tokyo rampage in the original. That being said, it never feels too short, and ends on a moment that is simultaneously one of the most awesome atomic breath scenes in the entire franchise, as well as one of the hardest gut punches in the entire franchise. Godzilla disappears for a little while as our heroes draw up their plan to kill him, which, if I'm honest, does feel like it drags a bit, before it's all ahead full for the finale, which is one of the most satisfying finales in the entire franchise, Minus One really does like going for those high bars, doesn't it. Having concocted their insane plan to crush Godzilla to death by sinking him to the bottom of an ocean trench, our heroes charge into battle against the monster with four decommissioned destroyers and a single fighter plane. What follows is an exhilarating battle as our heroes try to get Godzilla to the bottom of the trench before he can annihilate them with his atomic breath, all while Shikishima keeps going in for incredibly cathartic attack runs in his plane to keep Godzilla's attention off the destroyers.
This finale marks the completion of not only Shikishima's journey, but also of many of the film's themes, on top of being a simply phenomenal action sequence, full of urgency and tension, and featuring one of the most effective uses of silence in any film I've ever seen. So effective, in fact, that in four of the five screening I attended when it was in cinemas, of which two were packed, during that moment of silence, you could hear a pin drop, which goes to show how invested everyone was in this finale, it was fantastic. Above anything else, this finale is a testament to Yamazaki's writing, because few films' scripts are even half as efficient and feature complete as Minus One's, there is no fat, nothing that gets left out or forgotten, it all comes together perfectly to make the film feel complete in a way that few Godzilla films have since the original. And what's a good Godzilla film without amazing special effects and a killer soundtrack. Naoki Sato provides the film with it's soundtrack, which flawlessly sets the mood in the film's quieter moments, as well as ramping up the awesome in it's louder ones. Like Bear McCreary's soundtrack for King of the Monsters, Sato's soundtrack also uses classic Akira Ifukube tracks, creating epic Godzilla suites that the film only uses in it's maximum impact moments, emphasising the size and power of the monster. And I'm not going to lie, hearing a modern recording of Ifukube's Godzilla March in a cinema was one of the most surreal and awesome moments of my life, I loved it.
As well as writing and directing the film, Yamazaki also serves as the film's visual effects director, and as we all know, this film won an Oscar for it's effects. What makes Minus One's effects so astounding isn't how good they are, but that they look as amazing as they do on such a low budget, something that was made into a very big deal when the film released last year. While the Hollywood films it was competing with were financially underperforming on budgets exceeding one-hundred million dollars, Minus One skipped along on a budget of less than fifteen million dollars. Much was said about how Minus One humiliated Hollywood, and there is undeniably some truth to this. Just compare this film to an infamous box office flop it was competing with; The Marvels, which didn't even make back it's production budget, a skull splitting two-hundred and seventy million dollars, eighteen times the production budget of Minus One, which made back it's budget ten times over, while still having far superior visual effects. There's a lot more that can be said about the failure of The Marvels, but not here, this is Godzilla's day, after all. Having Yamazaki serve as the film's effects director goes a long way to ensuring that the film is visually consistent; no effect shots come off looking weird or rough around the edges, and like in the original film, there are dozens of effects shots in this film that you probably wouldn't even notice are effects shots, it all flawlessly blends together to create the look of post-war Japan, and while the level of the effects doesn't compare to something like Avatar: The Way of Water, it is, nonetheless, a remarkable achievement in visual effects that the film industry should probably take notes from.
Circling back around to the Big Guy, like his American counterpart, Minus One's Godzilla is entirely a CGI creation, not that you'd be able to tell as like Shin Godzilla before him, his movements are very limited and slow, reminiscent of how classic Godzilla suits moved. Unlike Shin Godzilla, however, this Godzilla doesn't just move forward, he is frighteningly aggressive and destructive, his eyes almost burning with hatred as he goes on his rampage. Through the way he looks and moves, this Godzilla conveys power and intent, he really feels like Godzilla, which is the best thing you can say about him. Before we wrap things up, there is one aspect of Minus One that I feel needs to be addressed, a sort of elephant in the room, that being how certain people reacted to it. When Godzilla Minus One first hit US cinemas, many online personalities who'd never cared about the Godzilla franchise before suddenly loved it, which sounds fine until you realise that these people were very often not being entirely honest. Countless video essayists started making videos about Godzilla that only demonstrated their ignorance of the series, or worse, made them look like grifters trying to ride the wave of enthusiasm the film generated. There's nothing inherently wrong with a piece of media being rejected outright based on the perception of the person doing the rejecting, this is simply an expression of preferences, for example, not wanting to watch a certain film because it's of a genre you don't like.
There is a problem, however, when this hypothetical strawman does an about-face and starts claiming knowledge and expertise in an area they'd previously been wilfully ignorant of. For a long time, I have believed in a trend I call the anti-Godzilla bias; a tendency of general audiences to reject Godzilla because it is Godzilla, and Godzilla is lame and not real art. Minus One smashed through that bias for a lot of people, and it made plenty of new Godzilla fans in the process. But among them are plenty of midwits that came out thinking they knew everything about Godzilla, and that their interpretation of Godzilla is the correct one, that way, acknowledging that Minus One is art, while still being able to dismiss the rest of the franchise. It'd be easy to get mad at these people, but it'd ultimately be pointless; to paraphrase Bill Murray, you can't win an argument with an idiot. Regardless of how wrong these tourists get this franchise, they will never change anything, they'll spread their ignorant nonsense until they get bored and move on to the next big thing, all the while the real fans of this franchise will continue to love it and share it with others, carrying it's legacy in meaningful and positive ways for generations to come. Godzilla is just too big, his cultural and artistic legacy too strong, and no amount of dim-witted hot takes or shameless grifting will ever be able to change that.
Is your war finally over?
Godzilla Minus One is an absolute beast of a film. Many other Godzilla films have had strong themes and messages, but not since the original has one of them hammered home its themes and message so brilliantly. That it does so while also telling a captivating and emotionally turbocharged story, full of lovable characters and sky-high stakes, is one hell of a bonus. There aren't many films I can think of that feel as rich and complete as Minus One, it really is the whole package, delivering all the drama, horror, excitement, sadness and joy you could ever need in a monster movie. Godzilla Minus One was so good, it got the attention of people who never cared about Godzilla, and while some of those people ended up attracting the ire of the Godzilla fandom, the film has managed to create millions of new Godzilla fans. It deserves all the love and respect it gets, and then some, and while I still don't think it's better than the original, it's the only film in the Godzilla series that even gets close. Godzilla Minus One is a masterpiece, and an absolute must watch.