Movie Review: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Title: Godzilla Minus One
Release Date: November 3, 2023
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Production Company: Toho Studios | Robot Communications
Summary/Review:

The original Godzilla is a classic because it is a human drama metaphorically representing the trauma of war in age of atomic weapons.  Plus it has a terrifying monster rampaging through Tokyo.  Godzilla Minus One follows a similar premise, set at the end of World War II and in the immediate years afterwards as the survivors of the war deal with shame, loss, and stresses of everyday survival.  It also shows the resilience of a people who work together when they will receive no support from their own government or that of their victorious opponent.

Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot who fakes a mechanical problem with his plane to avoid carrying out his mission.  He lands his fighter on Odo Island for repairs and overnight the base is devastated by Godzilla.  Only Kōichi and the mechanic Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) survive.  Plagued by guilt and remorse, Kōichi returns to a devastated Tokyo where his family has not survived.  He takes in a young woman, Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) and an orphan baby she is caring for, Akiko.  The form a found family, although Kōichi and Noriko are not romantically involved initially.

Kōichi finds work on a minesweeper ship and begins to rebuild his life.  But then Godzilla returns and attacks the mainland.  Turns out that a member of the minesweeper crew, Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka), has a plan to destroy Godzilla which is both entirely practical and kind of hilarious.  Kenji forms a civilian organization to carry out his plan, while Kōichi plots his own revenge with a fighter restored by Sōsaku.

The movie has a lot of action and heroism worth of a popcorn flick.  But it also deals deeply with a lot of the emotions that the characters are dealing with going through multiple traumas.  The movie is both cynical about the society that let them get to such a low point while also optimistic about the power of the people working together.  In short, it’s just an absolutely brilliant film on multiple levels.  My only wish is that Noriko didn’t get sidetracked for a better part of the movie’s duration, because it’s a rather man-heavy film, and she’s an interesting character.

Rating: ****

Halloween Horror Movie Festival: Godzilla (1954)

Title: Godzilla
Release Date: October 27, 1954
Director: Ishirō Honda
Production Company:  Toho Co., Ltd
Summary/Review:

Off the coast of Japan’s Odo Island, ships are suffering catastrophic disasters.  Rumors spread of an ancient sea creature named Godzilla returning, but the reality proves even worse as a Jurassic Era dinosaur-like creature begins wreaking havoc on the mainland.  Dr. Kyohei Yamane (Takashi Shimura) determines that the creature has been released from underwater caverns by hydrogen bomb testing.  Yamane’s daughter Emiko (Momoko Kōchi), who is the emotional heart of the film, is romantically involved with salvage ship captain Hideto Ogata (Akira Takarada), but earlier had broken off an engagement with the inventor Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) and learned that he created a powerful device that could kill Godzilla. But at what cost?

I remember when I was a kid a local TV station had regular monster movie weeks with Godzilla and other kaiju characters.  I’d assumed that I had watched the original Godzilla, but in researching for this review I could have only seen the heavily-edited American version which intercut scenes with Raymond Burr playing an American journalist.  My memory of these movies is that they were pretty campy, but Godzilla is not campy at all.  In fact it is very somber.  The metaphor of the creature Godzilla to the destruction of Japanese cities by the atomic bomb is not subtle as the characters discuss Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as controversial American H-Bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean.

The movie is well-paced with a growing sense of tension, wisely holding-off a full view of Godzilla until well into the movie (much like Jaws would do a couple of decades later).  This is a monster movie but it’s not about the monster so much of the people caught up in political intrigue and moral dilemmas.  The score of the movie is also excellent and adds to the feeling of solemnity of the movie.  I’m pretty sure that later movies took the idea of monsters attacking Japan and made it camp, but this movie plays with documentary-style seriousness and is better for it.

Rating: ****