MOVIE REVIEW: Godzilla Minus One

Japan's Toho smashes Hollywood productions on 1/20th the budget.

For as long as memory serves, there has been a parallel of Godzilla productions in the East and the West; Japan, the original home of the big lizard, has its own continuity, while America regularly makes expensive imitations that destroy investments faster than the monster destroys cities.

When America gave us Matthew Broderick tracking a pregnant iguana through New York (1998), Japan gave us the massive dino-boss fighting an alien in Godzilla 2000. Later the debris settled and America revived the Big Guy for a whopping 10 minutes of screen time in 2014, and Japan responded with the lukewarm Shin Godzilla. Now that the MonsterVerse is in full swing and Godzilla is teaming up with Kong, Japan is once again asserting itself with a big-screen treatment of its most popular cinematic icon.

And let me tell you, reader: I was not prepared for what this movie was cooking up. By the end credits I even had a couple of Single Manly Tears.

Godzilla Minus One is a prequel to the long-running series, which now totals more than thirty flicks of varying quality. The title is one of those esoteric Japanese things that, when translated directly to English, loses something of its original subtlety. Think of it as a soft origin for Godzilla as he rises from the depths of the sea in the waning days of World War Two.

That said, he’s not the main focus of the story. Let’s get to that…

The Story

Our protagonist is Koichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot who chooses life over his mission, feigning engine trouble and landing on Odo Island. The mechanics can’t find anything wrong with his plane. Japanese honor being what it is, he’s defensive when accused of shirking his duty, but some of the mechanics agree with what he did.

That night, a young Godzilla emerges from the ocean near Odo and attacks the place. Locals are aware of what he is and what he does, but to Koichi and the mechanics, he’s a new experience. They mistakenly engage with Godzilla, who kills most of them; Koichi has a chance to fight back but he seizes up, and later the head mechanic blames him for the deaths of the others. Godzilla returns to the sea unscathed.

The heart of the story is about Koichi dealing with the consequences of his cowardice, returning home to a bombed-out Tokyo in 1945, and piecing together the remains of his life. His parents are dead. His neighbor knows he was a kamikaze pilot and blames people like him for Japan losing the war. He welcomes a young woman, Noriko, into his home, and she brings an infant with her who she rescued from a deceased family.

It’s a hell of an emotional burden and it’s entirely demonstrative of the state of postwar Japan, a nation trying to find its footing and its identity in the wake of total defeat. But for Koichi, the war never truly ended, and he can’t find closure for his failings.

While the runtime of this movie comes in at just over two hours, it uses jump-cuts through time with a judicious hand, advancing up to 1947 and showing Japan on the rebound. Koichi takes a job as a minesweeper in the ocean and he’s able to rebuild his house and provide a life for Noriko and the child. Then the US starts doing nuclear tests in the Pacific, and Godzilla pops up, bigger and badder than ever.

If this seems like a long description of the story, rest assured reader…this only takes you to the end of the first act. From here, Koichi starts to wrestle with the demons that have plagued him since the day he landed on Odo. You’re in for a ride.

The Characters

The man who plays Koichi, Ryunosuke Kamiki, is the Tom Cruise of Japan right now. At only 30 years old he has an impressive filmography in the rear view and for most of us in the West, this is our first introduction to him. He’ll only get bigger from here. He brings a powerful emotional weight to his character, showing his anger, his shame, his vulnerability, and his determination in a way that keeps your eyes glued to the screen.

Opposite him, Noriko is a charming and disarming female lead, a survivor who lights up the screen without being burdened with the Stronk Wumman mantle that Hollywood would throw at her. She’s delicate, feminine, dedicated to the child she rescued, and highly practical, while still trying to grow into the ideal role of a Japanese wife and mother. If anyone can put Koichi back together after the war, it’s her.

Koichi’s turn on the minesweeper gives us a crew to root for in Yoji "(“Captain”), Yuki (“Kid”), and Kenji (“Doc”), who add some color to his experience out on the seas. The Captain is world-weary and hates how “this country never changes.” He’s also got the balls to face down Godzilla in nothing but a wooden boat to buy time for a warship to arrive, because “Someone’s got to do it.” Doc has the brains to use salvaged mines to fight Godzilla, Kid has the zeal to join the fight because he missed the war, and Koichi has a steady hand on the deck gun to round it all out.

It just goes on and on. As the story progresses, even the bit characters bring heart and soul in the limited screen time they get, and you really feel the magnitude of the challenge facing them. They have to kill Godzilla and they have to do it on a shoestring budget, because nobody is coming to save them.

The World

The biggest thing you need to understand about this setting is that after World War Two ends, the Cold War begins pretty much instantly, and the once-necessary tie between the US and the Soviets is now a tense, fraying thread. Godzilla destroys the few American ships left in the Pacific. Truman won’t send more because the Soviets might take it as a gesture of escalation, and now that everyone’s got nukes, that’s a dangerous recipe.

Japan is broke and most of her remaining navy is decommissioned or disarmed. The government mourns Godzilla’s rampages, but won’t do anything to stop him. Libertarians in the audience will pump their fists when private citizens rally to come up with their own plan, enlisting the help of military veterans to pool their knowledge and figure out how to save their country.

(The cynic in me couldn’t help thinking that in Biden’s America, not only would the government refuse to help, they’d stop citizens from doing anything about it too…change my mind…)

Content

Surprisingly, very, very mild. No profanity. No sex. In the beginning Godzilla is about the size of a T-Rex in Jurassic Park, and while he bites people, he doesn’t seem interested in eating them, just throwing them around and killing them. There’s some blood, but no guts and gore.

Who’s it for?

Fans of kaiju movies, Godzilla movies, World War Two movies, tales of family and honor, of redemption in the wake of destruction, and the enduring will of the human spirit to live.

Why watch it?

It’s no secret that we’re starved for great cinema in America these days. Hollywood can’t get out of bed in the morning without dumping a $200M gender-neutral inclusive bowel movement on a huge screen, and then blaming the audience for staying home.

Now we live in a world where three of the best movies this year are a video game cartoon that started in Japan (Super Mario Bros), a biopic about the guy who nuked Japan (Oppenheimer), and a giant monster that trashes Japan. And that’s not even counting the Netflix sensation of the year (One Piece) based on a manga, out of Japan.

(Yes Japan, we see you, we like you, we want more of what you’re doing.)

I’d love me a renaissance of American movies, but more to the point, I just want great movies. If the homeland isn’t making them—and our friends overseas are—then spending cash to see this stuff in the theater is the way to get it.

And hell, since Godzilla Minus One is subtitled in English, it’s perfect for UpstreamReviews because it counts as two hours of reading.

Go see it. The initial run is supposed to be limited, but if it keeps raking in good money, it’ll stretch throughout December and into the New Year. Just make sure you go to the bathroom first—most of Act Three happens at sea.