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Despite the creature-like title, “Godzilla Minus One” could easily be mistaken for a 1950s romantic melodrama. On the one hand, it is the story of a Japanese couple raising a small child after World War II. Koichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a former kamikaze pilot who only survived because he abandoned his mission, is ashamed of his cowardice and wants to make amends for his mistake. Noriko (Minami Hamabe) is his non-traditional partner; They sleep in separate beds but have a strong emotional bond. Together they live in bombed-out Tokyo – across the street from her occasional babysitter and frequent parenting advisor – with the little girl Noriko took in after promising a dying woman that she would care for her child. There isn’t enough work, the roof is leaking, and Koichi has what today would be described as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Oh, and there’s a 200-foot-tall lizard terrorizing the land.
In this remake of 1954’s Godzilla, filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki, juggling the duties of writer, director and visual effects supervisor, mixes the tried-and-true beats of a modern blockbuster with the emotional and political tone of the original film. The result is nothing short of magical: a feast for the eyes, an entertaining epic in the truest sense of the word.
The film begins late at night, in the final days of the war, on a remote airstrip that is suddenly attacked by a mysterious creature. While many modern Godzilla adaptations rely on scale and spectacle, Yamazaki favors tension and shoots from below to bring the titular creature, the Kaiju, back to his horror roots. This Godzilla is truly terrifying for the first time in a long time. Only later does Yamazaki show the rampage from a different angle. The spectacle returns, but with an added edge: Godzilla is not a boxer who has to compete in the ring with another Kaiju, but certain death that is slowly coming towards you.
While recent American Godzilla films (part of a monster verse featuring King Kong and other so-called Titans) have their strengths, their focus on science fiction, advanced technology and backstories about ancient civilizations has erased some of the human emotion of the original film. Here, it’s up to ordinary people, not other monsters, to stop Godzilla. This increases the emotional stakes.
Monster movies live and die by such emotional investments – and that’s where “Minus One” thrives. The first hour features little of the titular reptile, instead focusing on the bond between Koichi and Noriko, which begins with her handing him a baby while running from what we believe is an angry shopkeeper. Eventually Noriko moves in and their affection for each other grows in the rubble of their country.
The first half of the film does most of the work and creates the intense mood that is essential to the second half. Even after Godzilla returns, the film’s delicate core is carefully maintained.
That’s not to say the spectacle isn’t also effective. The scenes of urban devastation are expertly choreographed and beautifully shot (by Kozo Shibasaki). If you can feel the effects of the film’s comparatively low budget in some of the large-scale scenes, most of the effects are well constructed. For example, the film’s depiction of Godzilla’s “atomic breath” – a blue-white beam that shoots out of his mouth – is astonishing. The build up to his first appearance is electrifying, a feeling of raw power that doesn’t fade when the effect is reused.
The Godzilla franchise had and still has profound political implications. The 1954 film criticized the atomic age and the impact of nuclear weapons on the planet in general (and Japan in particular). This implication remains valid, as the scenes in Tokyo are eerily reminiscent of photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is also criticism of the Japanese imperial government and the military’s policy of self-sacrifice, which is underlined by Koichi’s refusal to “die honorably”.
The final act features some of the best blockbuster films in years. Naoki Sato’s score escalates as repurposed naval cruisers come into conflict with Godzilla in the open water. In the best case, such action sequences function like symphonies: individual instruments move as a unit and react to one another. When orchestrated well, they lead to catharsis. Yamazaki achieves this by creating a climax that is reminiscent of the best works of action directors Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron and Christopher McQuarrie.
“Top Gun: Maverick” showed us that there is still an audience for films that combine concise and creative action with emotional characters. “Godzilla Minus One” is another memoir – and possibly the better film of the two.
PG-13. In the theaters in the area. Contains violence and action. In Japanese with subtitles. 125 minutes.