"Godzilla Minus One" 2023 Review

 

Deep within the recesses of our subconscious lies an encounter with something so hostile and unnatural that it hardwired us to feel fear and act in the interest of survival. When faced with fear, we may choose to flee or freeze. In "Godzilla Minus One," people learn how to stand up and look fear in the eye.

Seven years after Toho rebooted its Godzilla franchise with the politically minded "Shin Godzilla," the historic Japanese studio has once again reimagined the atomic lizard in director Takashi Yamazaki’s "Godzilla Minus One." Set during Japan’s postwar recovery in the late 1940s, the "Minus One" in the title refers to Japan starting from zero — only for Godzilla’s emergence to plunge the battered nation further into a deficit of despair.

Yamazaki’s latest movie is as dark as it sounds, but it’s also a stunning portrait of bravery and resilience against overwhelming odds. It suggests that puny people can be as strong as a monster when we fight together for the right reasons. It weaves through various genres — an emotionally charged family drama, a war epic, a Jaws homage, and a gruesome monster horror. Regardless of its form, "Minus One" remains a well-directed feature about giving oneself permission to keep on living at any cost.

 

When protagonist Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot, enters the movie, Yamazaki’s camera fixates on the undetonated bomb beneath his plane, a stark reminder of Godzilla’s creative origins rooted in the atomic decimation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also symbolizes the movie’s narrative thrust. Shikishima is a kamikaze pilot who didn’t carry out the senseless duty he was meant to do. Shikishima’s own shame is amplified when he meets Godzilla on an island in a rousing opening set-piece where his fingers tremble on a trigger he never pulls.

The rest of the movie follows Shikishima building a new life literally atop the rubble of Japan after World War II. In a ramshackle makeshift home, Shikishima enters a platonic relationship with another survivor (Minami Hamabe) as they watch over a baby orphan in a subplot that is amusing until it becomes genuinely moving. Inevitably, Godzilla returns, now bigger and more dangerous from exposure to U.S. nuclear tests in Bikini Atoll. With Japan left defenseless, Shikishima finds himself in the company of war veterans who take it upon themselves to stop the monster from obliterating them all.

Director Takashi Yamazaki is a darling in Japan’s movie industry, a veteran of VFX-heavy productions who understands how to prioritize the most essential and emotionally relatable parts of his films. His filmography speaks to an artist born to direct a Godzilla movie. With "Godzilla Minus One," Yamazaki demonstrates a more understated but effective sense of humor, never betraying his intended somber tone.

Yamazaki is quite unlike many other spectacle-oriented directors for whom maximalism is the point. Whether it's giant spaceship battles or just his actors weeping on hospital beds, his staging is clear and compositions consistent. This is especially true here, with Godzilla’s unholy massacre of bustling Ginza technically sound with a coherent sense of space.

That Yamazaki also knows how to sell the beast’s imposing stature aids in our recognition of Godzilla as a foreign entity. Though kaiju films are ubiquitous and their potency diluted by superhero climaxes, Yamazaki’s overall grasp on "Godzilla Minus One" restores the eerie foreignness of a nuclear-powered dinosaur crushing buildings in broad daylight. Yamazaki’s Godzilla is fully a VFX creature with a thunderous sound design whose roars chill the spine and footsteps feel like cannon blasts. The director re-cements Godzilla’s Lovecraftian nature as an indescribable monstrosity whose presence can drive witnesses to insanity. During the movie’s staple city stomp, a long stretch of haunting visual poetry, a news crew standing close by on a rooftop have their eyes and lenses fixated on Godzilla. His tail swipes the foundation of the building from under their feet and we follow them all the way to the ground. The effect is almost enough to induce vertigo.

It is not hyperbole to say "Godzilla Minus One" is perhaps one of the finest movies of the kaiju genre ever put to screen since Ishiro Honda’s "Gojira" kicked off the franchise in 1954. It’s as bleak and zealous against the inhuman cost of war as Honda’s movie but brims with verve over its affirmations of life as a gift to share with others. Drop any and all notions that kaiju films are empty-calorie disaster porn. In contrast to Toho’s own camp sequels or the gaudy, Americanized MonsterVerse, "Godzilla Minus One" is beautiful in its mindfulness and honesty. It is a picture full of awful destruction yet cherishes the value of a single life by the totality of its complexities.

FAQ

1. Is Godzilla Minus One Movie Connected To Shin Godzilla?

Ans: While being the 33rd film in Toho's Godzilla franchise and following the recent reset with Shin Godzilla, Godzilla Minus One is set in a completely new continuity, distinct from previous entries.

2. Budget Of Godzilla Minus One Movie?

Ans: Budget Of Godzilla Minus One Movie Is Around 15 Million US Dollars.

3. Box Office Collection OF Godzilla Minus One Movie?

Ans: Box Office Collection OF Godzilla Minus One Movie Is Around 23 Million US Dollars.