In 1945, a kamikaze pilot–Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki)–fakes an engine failure to avoid taking his final flight. He survives a devastating attack by a monster but has to live with a crippling secret.
And that is the opening of GODZILLA MINUS ONE by writer/director Takashi Yamazaki.
Although Koichi returns to Tokyo, takes in a stray named Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and a baby, and the city rebuilds, the world changes drastically when America tests an atomic bomb in Bikini Atoll. Because Godzilla was there.
Soon after, the city is attacked. The military, depleted and defanged after the war, barely mounts a defense, but it is enough to push Godzilla away from the city. Unfortunately, former weapons engineer Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) believes Godzilla will return… and the only thing stopping him will be a civilian response, using a desperate plan and a handful of willing volunteers.
Against a monster whose heat ray triggers nuclear explosions, there’s no way to know if that will be enough.
Where the original was a meditation on the atomic bomb and its devastation, shaping Godzilla into a horrifying force of nature, GMO takes a different tack: it is war itself, and the horrors it wreaks on people, that is the real enemy. The impossible demands of a losing empire pushed Koichi into PTSD, even as Tokyo was bombed into a ruin and families were shattered for good. Godzilla is the embodiment of that nightmare–a malicious, even cruel and murderous thing–and only by opposing it can these survivors truly be free.
Yamazaki builds a masterful story through the first half of the movie, giving Kamiki and Hamabe a chance to build a relationship that if it isn’t love, it’s as close as the shattered pilot can come. Both deliver compelling performances, grounding the spectacles of a giant kaiju attack and giving the movie a powerful emotional core. When Godzilla chases a minesweeper, it’s as potent as the Orca being chased by the great white shark in JAWS. The camaraderie of the volunteers, the raw betrayal suffered by Tachibana–these are true movie moments, silver screen moments.
GODZILLA MINUS ONE has earned accolades from critics and viewers around the globe. Many call it the best Godzilla movie (or second-best after the original) and I can’t disagree, because this gets at what made the original compelling: it’s about more than special effects and us-vs.-it survival (well, maybe some of that at the end). The stakes are humanity; how we choose to survive, to face dangers from inside and out, and to trust in each other when trust is hard.
Worth seeing on the big screen, luckily its run has been extended. Go see it in the theater while you can.
