“My war isn’t over yet.”
I love giant monsters and I cannot lie. Since I was a kid I’ve enjoyed seeing Godzilla and his kin destroy tanks and trains and bridges, stomp cities flat and – if I’m lucky – set things on fire with their radioactive/fire breath. There’s something primal about seeing a creature as big as a skyscraper stomp through the physical pinnacles of our achievements. They’re reminders of nature’s indiscriminate fury, viewed safely from the couch or movie seat.
For no good reason at all I’m declaring this Kai-June, and will be devoting Fear Flashback to giant monster films all month. I might even get around to some top 10 lists or other shenanigans. We’ll see how it goes.
For my first foray into monster-sized fun, I’m taking a look at one of the most recent giant monster movies and one of my favorite films of 2023. Godzilla Minus One took me (and the world) by surprise, treating us to a powerful emotional story at the heart of a special effects extravaganza that also succeeded at being one of the most terrifying Godzilla films of all time. I saw it in the theater, and I was honestly not expecting a Godzilla film to make me teary-eyed. I’d heard it was good, but with Godzilla films you have to take that with a grain of salt. Sometimes that just means he isn’t flying backwards using his breath as a means of propulsion. (Though, to be fair, I kinda like Godzilla vs Hedora.)
I left the theater thinking I’d seen one of the best films of 2023, and others seemed to agree. G-1 became something of a phenomenon, and the highest grossing Japanese language film ever in the US. It became the first Godzilla film ever nominated for an Oscar. And then it became the first to WIN an Oscar.
That Godzilla Minus One was such a success was a surprise, but that it was a success on a relatively small budget (reports suggest anywhere from $10-$15 million dollars, US) and still delivered a blockbuster spectacle was almost a bigger story. Why were studios spending hundreds of millions of dollars on sub-par superhero and action films that failed to spark much interest at the box office, when there was this amazing cinematic experience to be had for a fraction of that? This is a question bigger than any kaiju, and you’re welcome to hash it out in the comments.
For me, it all boiled down to story and characters. This wasn’t the first Godzilla film to ground itself in a human story. The original Godzilla film had some of that, and Shin Godzilla as well. Even the first Monsterverse Godzilla film in 2014 had moments, though they seemed to dissipate once Bryan Cranston was no longer on-screen. It was the first to make it seem important. To make the tiny humans the heart of the film, so that we cared about them even in the face of Godzilla’s terrifying violence. It wasn’t JUST a Godzilla movie. It was a good MOVIE. And it was a GREAT Godzilla movie.
Of course your mileage may vary.
The Medium
I watched Godzilla Minus One on Netflix, where it dropped without much fanfare on June 1st. It can be rented or purchased through various streaming outlets. There is currently no physical release outside of Japan.
The Movie
During the closing days or World War II, pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) lands his plane at a Japanese base on Odo Island. The head mechanic, Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki), quickly realizes that there’s nothing wrong with Shikishima’s plane. The shaken pilot is fleeing certain death as a kamikaze pilot, though he denies this even when Tachibana seems sympathetic. That night a giant, dinosaur-like monster attacks the base. One of the mechanics says the local islanders call it Godzilla. Tachibana orders Shikishima to attack the creature with his plane’s big guns, but the pilot freezes up. In the end, only Shikishima and Tachibana survive the attack.
Oh, I like this. The attack by Godzilla is terrifying, even though he’s just Tyrannosaurus sized. The callbacks to the original film are great, with Odo island being the place Godzilla first makes landfall in the 1954 original. That he’s somewhat dinosaur-like also reminds me of Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991), where the monster first appears as a dinosaur before being mutated by a hydrogen bomb test. The emotional tone is also set here, with Tachibana able to understand Shikishima’s fear of death, and even sympathize with it, but unable forgive the inaction that leads to the deaths of his men.
Shikishima returns home with a pocket full of blood-covered pictures of the dead men and their families, a final “gift” from Tachibana. He finds Tokyo in ruins, and his parents dead. There’s a moment, standing in the shattered pieces of what used to be his life, traumatized by his own loss and battered by the judgement of a neighbor who also lost everything, where you can see Shikishima thinking, “what did I even survive the war FOR?” It’s not hard to extrapolate this to Japan itself after World War II – all that death and destruction, and for what?
Life goes on, though, even in the ruins, and soon Shikishima finds himself living with, and caring for, Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) – a young woman who also lost everything in the war. She brings with her an orphaned girl, Akiko (Sae Nagatani). As time passes, the two adults find work, Noriko in an office in Ginza, Shikishima on a minesweeper boat – the wooden hull making it ideal for taking out magnetic mines left over from the war. It’s a hard life, and Shikishima seems unable to move on from the war enough to see how much Noriko cares for him, but things are getting better.
And then Godzilla shows up.
Mutated by nuclear testing in the Pacific, Godzilla is no longer the dinosaur sized creature that Shikishima first encountered. He’s massive, and unbelievably destructive. Somehow Shikishima and his friends on the minesweeper get roped into trying to delay the monster, their lives once again being spent cheaply by an uncaring government. This leads to one of the most tense sequences in the film – an homage to Jaws – as Godzilla pursues their ship.
Godzilla in this film is once again akin to a force of nature. There’s little in his personality outside of apparent rage. Whenever he appears, people die – a LOT of people die. While Shikishima and his crew are saved by the arrival of the warship Takao (a Japanese ship destined for decommission), there’s no one to save the men of that warship from Godzilla’s wrath. Godzilla is the war writ large, an apocalypse on two feet. His heat ray is the equivalent of an atomic blast. For Shikishima, Godzilla is all his failures come to find him at last, and stomp all over any happiness he might have thought he could have.
With no help coming from the Americans and the official authorities unable or unwilling to do anything, a group of veterans and civilians comes together with a desperate plan to try and destroy Godzilla. Shikishima, in the wake of yet more tragedy, volunteers as a pilot to distract and lead the monster to where the ragtag fleet can confront it.
But Shikishima, heartsick and feeling like the death he cheated will simply destroy everything good around him until he submits, has a plan of his own.
The emotional elements of the film are heightened, and for some people it might be over the top. I found it a great counterpoint to the exaggerated action and violence of Godzilla’s appearances. Looking at it objectively, maybe everything ties up a little too neatly. Maybe we don’t deserve the ending we get. I don’t care, though. It was the ending I wanted, and if I cried a little during it, I assure you I wasn’t the only one in the theater doing so.
For once, I came out of a Godzilla movie feeling like I got enough of the big guy as well. He’s not in it a lot, but director Takashi Yamazaki makes sure every appearance is impactful and a spectacle of kaiju violence. Little details, like chunks of pavement lifting up as he steps on the streets, abound. The care the effects team put into these sequences is apparent.
On the whole, the film feels satisfying. There’s enough kaiju destruction to satisfy even the hardcore G-fan and there are well-drawn characters caught up in an emotionally involving story. What more could you ask for?
The Bottom Line
Godzilla Minus One is a great Godzilla movie, a monstrous spectacle with a human heart. For some the emotionality will border on melodrama, but for me it works – the emotion as heightened as the action. While other Godzilla films have been very good, this is really the first one that feels like it approaches the same quality and entertainment value as the original. A fitting tribute as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Godzilla’s creation.
