‘Godzilla Minus One’ review: The kaiju franchise at its best

By reframing the psychology and geo-political history of Godzilla himself, Godzilla Minus One successfully explores the dichotomy between its human characters and the overwhelming force of Godzilla himself.  Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, fans have been awaiting his interpretation of the infamous creature since his 2007 film,  Always Sunset on Third Street in which he briefly introduces an approach to Godzilla that would forever change the expectations of fans. Yamazaki’s eye for scale and hand-made VFX would leave fans in indefinite suspension, speculating amongst themselves as to what a Godzilla film of that variety could ultimately look like for 15 years. Now, those fans know.

Director Yamazaki, who also wrote the script, not only creates a period piece to turn the 70-year-old franchise inward as a reflection of Japan’s darkest days but also as a mirror of the modern era. Even when only speaking to the landscape of cinema in 2023, it is poetically fitting that the film hits theaters mere months removed from Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, as even though Minus One does not directly name or mention the unspeakable terrors of the atomic bomb, the threat of its existence against life upon the earth is made clear. In addition to the air raids across Tokyo where Minus One takes place, it transitions from the ending of World War II to the beginning of the Cold War, during which people felt hopelessness, desperation, and uncertain mortal fear. Those emotions are captured by the wonderful cast in Godzilla Minus One, with performances throughout that embody certain dread. This is no accident, because while the world’s artists, historians and people have grafted countless metaphors onto Godzilla as a 20th century fable since 1954, Minus One seeks to embellish on Ishiro Honda’s ideas and make those feelings more text than subtext in its script.

The film opens on Kamiki Ryunosuke (Suzume, Ranman) as Koichi who feigns a plane malfunction so as to escape his fate as a Kamikazi suicide pilot. In this moment he’s instinctively chosen to live, caring more to see his family again than to die for a lost cause in the final days of the war. In a dynamic and terrifying intro sequence, Koichi once again fails to follow through on his perceived duty when he’s face to face with a primeval version of Godzilla. This opening constructs the thesis of Minus One and its main character. Koichi’s pull between the will to keep living and his survivor’s guilt goes through a complex metamorphosis of personal redemption and self validation, not out of nationalism but for love of his community and found family.

That found family anchors him, as Koichi takes in a young woman named Noriko and a baby named Akiko, who neither could fathom abandoning, as they both lost their families in the Tokyo air raids just as he did. Koichi builds something of a surrogate family in Noriko and Akiko, albeit while distancing himself due to his guilt. He denies them repeatedly and minimizes their presence, working through his trauma, warranting his reclusive attitude and negligence to the semblance of normalcy Noriko wants to assert for the sake of Akiko. Where she wants to fill the void with a make-shift family dynamic as a means of coping with her family dying, Koichi, in turn, won’t let her into any part of his life. Noriko looks to move forward on her terms and find her place in the world again.

The film smartly focuses on Koichi wanting to avenge the men on Odo Island, but he’s paralyzed by the notion of dying in an encounter with Godzilla. The Odo Island casualties weight in the harbor of his subconscious like ghosts; every effort he makes to begin living again is undone by grief. He rebuilds his life and home around the wreckage of his past, but refuses to move forward by constantly seeking forgiveness from the dead. Koichi ultimately is suspended in a state of unreality and anguish, often believing he died that day on the island and lays rotting on the beach and is now living in a dream.

The ghosts of his past that travel with him along his journey are immortalized by Godzilla, whose growth and emergence from the sea ruin his life at every turn, a slowly advancing, menacing figure who haunts his subconscious. In contrast to Shin Godzilla’s inert, seemingly soulless design, Minus One depicts Godzilla moving with ferocity and blood lust like a rabid animal, an uncommon interpretation of the legendary monster. A palpable sense of dread to his presence is the quintessential summation of his appeal: awe-inspiring that something so destructive can exist and terror in the uncertainty of who and where it will be unleashed upon. This is primarily achieved by the effect Godzilla has on each character. One may argue that the animation sometimes looks wonky, akin to Shin Godzilla’s uncanny vibe (a positive). Still, Godzilla’s light direction and model are so strong that it’s not a serious qualm, especially when analyzing the incredible sequences that depict him interacting with the ocean and the boats he is attacking, all using digital effects.

Much like Shusuke Kaneko’s Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah (2001) Godzilla himself harbors the souls of those who perished in the war. Godzilla ultimately is a pliable canvas. While he’s often perceived as a one-to-one motif for nuclear devastation, he may just as well be a metaphor for imperialist Japan as much as for COVID-19 and the failure of government response or guidance. 

Minus One is a distinct exploration between allegory and applicability. While Godzilla almost always is the embodiment of nuclear tensions, Yamazaki also reflects the invasion in Ukraine and the global Covid response. In the same sense that Shin-Godzilla is an allegory to the 2011 Fukushima incident, it’s also a modern commentary of how middling bureaucracy can hinder setting aside formalities in order to act promptly. With both films, you can profoundly create different readings in society, politics and natural disasters in a beautiful reflection of one-another, as Godzilla is framed as a natural disaster, or outside force, and the story is how the people of Japan, or its governing body, responds to such a crisis. 

Similarly to Shin-Godzilla, Minus One critiques Japan’s nationalism and the devastation war bears upon its people mentally and physically. Thankfully, as some Godzilla fans worried due in part to Yamazaki’s 2014 adaptation of The Eternal Zero being met with both acclaim and clapback, Minus One operates as a fairly stark rebuke of jingoism and nationalism and the Japanese government of the time, with scrutiny towards the country’s politics and conventions, but not in a way that may isolate global audiences or the themes be lost on them. Minus One focuses on a story of community, as its people were left to flounder, and because of rising Cold War tensions, had no external assistance either, as the film’s majority occurs in 1947 prior to the Marshall Plan with the United States.

The film maintains a strictly citizen perspective, other than the Tokyo Air Raids because it’s where our characters reside and is in Godzilla’s immediate trajectory. There’s no mention of any events of the war including Hiroshima and Nagasaki or Imperialist Japan’s atrocities, which could read as problematic to some, however the government refuses to inform the public and information control to avoid confusion, as nobody will take accountability for the chaos, which reads as a rebuttal to post WWII revisionism in itself.

The characters decry the underpinning of Japanese ideology and militaristic protocols, expounding that refusing to go to war is something to be proud of, embracing the will to live. In a non-viable neighborhood the community devised a scheme using a few measly tugboat sailors, some cables and a touch of science, shoestring assets which ultimately sends Godzilla to his watery grave in a rare and immensely satisfying naval combative finale.

Minus One redefines its characters’ patriotism through a cobbled together unofficial operation composed of people who were driven to live for their families and not for a governing cause, which is partly what makes the film work artistically and emotionally. By “ending the war” they end the devastation of their homes against approaching disaster, refusing who you are when you’re a soldier and returning to a community to help others.

The film blossoms into a tender epic of found family, a sense of leadership and national pride detached from failures of their own government. Save for a few useless tank cameos, the Japanese military is absent from this film, which is a rarity for the franchise, and their excuse is to not raise Soviet and US tension, therefore the responsibility falls directly on ordinary citizens to devise a plan to deal with this threat. Godzilla Minus One set the new standard for what these movies should be, and reinvented the widespread appeal. Unlike its predecessor, Shin-Godzilla, Godzilla Minus One serves as an accessible entry point to the series that can appeal to long-time fans and newcomers alike. A film that is actually saying something, breathes new life into a 70-year-old franchise and cements it as the most definitive film in the Godzilla franchise.

Godzilla Minus One is now in theaters. Watch the trailer below.