Godzilla, Minus One: Toho Creates a Rip Roaring Monster of a Film

Post war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb.

Review:

Godzilla, Minus One gets it all right: the creature, plot, character, emotions.

Godzilla is not just a monster, he is death itself, revenging, unpitying, black as fury and rage and despair. Godzilla has always been a symbol and creature of the post atomic bomb era. His breath is nuclear. He feeds off radiation. And in this case, develops blue spikes when he’s ready to strike. He is Japan’s greatest threat, yet its most well known fiction- the shadow of the bomb that will forever be part of that country’s history and psyche.

Godzilla, Minus One brings back the hate part of the love-hate relationship of the series. That hate extends to the shame the main character, Koichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki) a former kamikaze pilot. feels for abandoning his mission. That coming to grips with honor and death, the fascination with suicide as a form of atonement that is part of the samurai ethos that attached itself like a parasite to the Japanese consciousness, will be getting a good scourging during the entirety of Minus One. I suspect that is the Minus One being referred to in the title. It’s trying to replace the good and honorable death with the idea of Ikiru– living the good and honorable life.

Koichi inside hears shi/haji- death/shame. Outside the people all around him living humbly in the atomic rubble are telling him Ikiru- live- over and over. Mass death has a way of erasing death’s meaning and sharpening the point of life.

The bomb has literally erased the nuclear family of blood relations. Everyone here is an orphan handed the responsibility of maintaining family by the dead. Noriko (Minabi Hanabe), Koichi’s nontraditional partner, was found wandering the rubble with a child (not hers, but the daughter of a dying couple, who saw Noriko as the daughter’s only chance for life) pleading for help, which came in the form of Koichi briefly holding the child in his arms until a mortal danger has passed. They develop a strong emotional but non sexual bond, that becomes love as Koichi goes through the process of overcoming the shame of the vanquished, and is able to finally put the past behind by metaphorically completing his kamikaze mission.

The ending features Koichi flying the deux ex machina that will save him and Tokyo from Godzilla’s all consuming wrath- and tearfully returning to the hospital where a heavily bandaged Noriko greets him with the film’s devastating final line- is your war over yet? The new nuclear family can now be formally acknowledged to exist in Koichi’s heart, mind and soul.

The director, writer, and special effects supervisor, Takashi Yamazaki knows how to mix successfully the tried-and-true beats of the modern blockbuster. There is a level of existential horror to the stomping and monster attacks. I felt each death intimately, painfully because they are often suggested rather than shown. The atomic breath sequences have the emotional effect of watching an actual atom bomb exploding. Seeing folks blown backwards is not something the mind can easily dismiss without some angst and remorse. I love how Yamazaki is able to build an audience attachment by allowing enough space between attacks for the audience to grieve, yes grieve, and not catch their breath, let the emotional pain dull some. It’s even more effective because everything is exquisitely layered in- the political, emotional, the grim spectacle can’t be excised without killing the other elements.

Tamazaki prefers old fashion suspense, shooting the creature from below to return Godzilla back to its horror roots. He is now terrifying, the original horror shorn of sentiment and nostalgia. The rampage sequences are shown up close first. Godzilla nee death inches closer and closer, only pulling back after the destruction. It’s like watching a funeral being shown. Then a second, a third, until there is nothing left but to show the entire graveyard being filled with new tombstones.

The American Godzilla films emphasize their links to the Marvel-zation of cinema, where everything is connected and or setups a prequel or a sequel. Godzilla must fight King Kong , or other kaijus. He can’t exist by himself or in stasis. Their focus eliminates the human element for spectacle, sci-fi, advance tech on display.

Minus One emphasizes its apartness, the fact that the only ones who are coming to save them is themselves. The Americans can’t be depended on to come to their rescue. They have their own wars to fight and recover from. Minus One takes its time showing Koichi and Noriko relationship, because the new national character is being formed, one that will someday make it economically great— and at times lonely— one with a sad and proud backstory.

Minus One does its emotional heavy lifting in the first half so it can tear one’s heart out and put it back in the second. It’s heart core is carefully nurtured every step of the way. Even the budget constraints make the film’s shortcomings a strength. Tamazaki focuses on what is important and will seem new and shocking. Godzilla’s atomic breath astounds with its vaguely nuclear and laser echoes. The buildup to the breaths are electric, give off a sensation of raw power that only terrifies more on second and third use. The rampage aftermaths echo photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even some old bomb test newsreels- the added effect of real humanity hurling backwards only enhancing the devastating impact.

The action scenes function as symphonies. The cruisers act as individual instrument performing as one, moving and responding to each other’s echoes. The slow careful variation of the familiar Godzilla theme adds greatly to the whole experience. At first, it’s slow and spaced out, hardly recognizable. By the end it has traveled and evolved with the characters to become the full theme that every Godzilla fan knows and remembers.

There’s still a place for movies that combine concise and creative action with emotionally resonant characters. Godzilla, Minus One is one of 2023’s best films. It gets a well deserved 4.0 out of 5 or an A-.