Written by/Directed by/Visual Effects Supervised by Takashi Yamazaki
Cinematography by Kozo Shibasaki
Edited by Ryuji Miyajima
Original Music by Naoki Sato
featuring themes by Akira Ifukube
Produced by Minami Ichikawa, Kazuaki Kishida, Keiichiro Moriya, Kenji Yamada
Starring
Ryunosuke Kamiki as Koichi Shikishima
Munetaka Aoki as Sosaku Tachibana
Minami Hamabe as Noriko Oishi
Sakura Ando as Sumiko Ota
Sae Nagatani as Akiko
Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda
Kuranosuke Sasaki as Yoji Akitsu
Yuki Yamada as Shiro Mizushima
. . .
“My war isn’t over . . .”
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
Here we have a new Godzilla movie. It is called Godzilla Minus One. It functions as a kind of remake of 1954’s Gojira, but with an emphasis on the harsh realities of survival in the immediate post-World War II rubblescape of Japan. In this version, Godzilla is an embodiment of Nature’s Wrath, a grotesque monster awakened by the violence of Imperial Japan and further mutated by the US’s creation of potentially world-ending nuclear weapons. Godzilla Minus One features vivid scenes of computer generated monstrosity-no men in suits this time-and a terrific lead actor performance. It isn’t perfect. It’s a step down, creatively, from the complex satire of 2016’s Shin Godzilla, but it is a very sincere and entertaining giant monster melodrama in its own right.
Elsewhere on this blog I describe a close-up of a fictional Japanese Prime Minister’s weeping face at the climax of Godzilla 1984 as the most spectacular special effect in the entire Godzilla franchise. In Godzilla Minus One there are, indeed, impressive computer effects, but the human emotion here is no techno-gimmick.
Koichi is a young man who has been trained and indoctrinated to become a kamikaze pilot: a suicide attacker sworn to crash his fighter plane into an American naval vessel during World War II. Koichi puts off consummating his fatal mission by falsely claiming that his plane wasn’t operating properly during a shakedown flight. The flight mechanics do a thorough rundown, but everybody already suspects the machine is in top form. The machine isn’t usually the problem in this sort of situation. It’s usually the emotional component of the human pilot wherein the true malfunction lies. The dilemma of Koichi the kamikaze pilot-a sworn suicide soldier who still hopes he can live-is the very heart of Godzilla Minus Zero.
Yes, this is also a giant monster movie. But the human conflicts are explored with a surprising amount of raw emotion. Postwar, Koichi weeps in despair and desperately begs for forgiveness and understanding from the women in his life, partner Noriko and neighbor Sumiko, who both suffered through Curtis LeMay’s firebombings that annihilated scores of civilians. Sumiko, in particular, shames Koichi for not fulfilling his mission. The “failed” kamikaze stews in his misery and questions whether or not he’s alive or dead, awake or in a dream, cracking up under the weight of PTSD and survivor’s guilt. Later, the chief flight mechanic Sosaku-still burning with rage-binds and beats Koichi mercilessly for his “failure” to immolate himself in defense of the nation. Koichi’s postwar existence is no less of an ordeal than the traumas he suffered in battle. He is impressively played by Ryunosuke Kamiki in an almost expressionistically emotional performance. Godzilla Minus One is a well shot color picture as one would expect, but Kamiki’s work really deserves timeless black and white. Alas, that’s just not how movies get made anymore. Too bad.
As for the monster in question, Godzilla is here and ready for action. It is vividly rendered in different life stages. Godzilla wreaks havoc on land and sea. Moreover, the very presence of Godzilla is so overwhelming that people get killed from panic and freezing up in terror as much as from the monster’s extreme violence. This version of the iconic kaiju is realized by superbly crafted computer graphics. My favorite visual of the beast is when it has breached the water line in relentless pursuit of a tiny ship, its creepily intelligent eyes locked onto its prey-very effective.
Aside from my burning desire to see a new Godzilla film in black and white, I do have some more down-to-earth criticisms. Godzilla Minus One depicts a devastated postwar Japan in some detail, and yet it did feel a little too clean, a little too idealized at times. It could’ve used a little more street level grittiness. A little more Shohei Imamura, and a little less Spielberg. Godzilla Minus One portrays a situation in which Japanese people can no longer trust their own government-that led them into calamitous war-or the occupying US forces-that slaughtered so many of their people with napalm and nuclear weapons. The heroes must depend upon themselves to defeat Godzilla, and therefore embark upon an intriguing post-imperial, post-nationalist project. But I’m not sure Godzilla Minus One fully explores this skepticism about authoritarian force. Koichi is the only character imbued with any complexity. Almost everyone else is written as one note can-do spirit types. Even the tough women-Noriko and Sumiko-are sidelined despite some very good scenes. Godzilla Minus One loses its edge when it focuses on the big plan to deal with Godzilla. But this is certainly not a case of absolute failure. This is just a movie that chooses to be more of a crowd-pleaser in how it resolves itself despite the harshness of its initial set-up. One sequence is a very obvious homage to Jaws. There’s even a brief visual callback to the recent cycle of Hollywood Godzilla flicks. Godzilla Minus One isn’t a better movie than Jaws, but it easily incinerates all trace of those overblown Warner Brothers “Monsterverse” productions.
Godzilla Minus One is a popcorn monster movie done well.
All the same, what I wouldn’t give for a Shin Godzilla 2 . . .
Alas . . .
