Godzilla Minus One - Review

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

THE Godzilla franchise now seems to be shared between Japan and Hollywood with decidedly mixed results. But while American output has ranged from good (Gareth Edwards' 2014 entry), to bad (Godzilla vs Kong) to downright ugly (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), Japan has been biding its time to finally deliver an out and out classic.

Godzilla Minus One, written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, eschews the Hollywood approach of doubling or even tripling down on the destruction and mayhem, and opts to put human emotion first.

It also shies away from turning its central monster into anything resembling a hero - rather, Godzilla here is a beast with a God-like ability to wreak misery and death.

Setting the film in the immediate aftermath of World War II also gives it extra depth and interest, showing as it does how Japan struggled to pick itself up from the disappointment (and shame) of defeat, as well as the horror of being bombed into submission.

It's an eye-opening and thought-provoking approach to storytelling that heightens the film's emotional reach.

Indeed, Minus One starts during the very last days of the war, as its main protagonist Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) opts out of a kamikaze mission, overcome by fear and an overriding desire to live, and lands on Odo island (a clever early nod to Godzilla lore) to fix a made-up engine failure.

However, his safe haven proves far from that when Godzilla arrives and wreaks havoc, killing almost all of the engineers who reside there.

Disgraced and ashamed, Shikishima finally makes it back to Tokyo to find it burned and all but destroyed by the Allied firebombing. His parents are also dead, while his home has been reduced to a pile of matchsticks.

Reluctantly, he builds a makeshift family with a young woman called Noriko (Minami Hamabe), who has also lost everything, and a baby named Akiko (played by Sae Nagatani as a three-year-old), whom Noriko was charged with looking after when she saw Akiko’s mother die in a bomb shelter.

Their tentative happiness is eventually threatened by the return of Godzilla, who has grown and become angrier, prompting Shikishima to join the fight back against it. But tragedy never seems far away...

It's this uncertainty that lends Godzilla Minus One such urgency and potency, keeping viewers absolutely gripped throughout. The sense of loss is palpable, as is the desperation and despair that must have been inherent in post-war Japan.

Yamazaki's direction offers intriguing insight into what life must have been like, while contemplating big issues of life and death, power and the abuse of it by Japanese authorities and the futility inherent in dying with honour (kamikaze-style), as opposed to staying alive and overcoming the struggle of everyday life.

It also treats its main creature as a monster akin to Jaws - a force of nature, which can strike ruthlessly and without compassion. The flim's scenes of destruction are terrifyingly impressive (much like the creature effects themselves) and fully deserving of the Oscar bestowed upon them.

But most impressively, they're not desensitising or voyeuristic in the way that some Hollywood movies fetishize destruction.

And yet, for all the despair and fear on display, there is a keen sense of hope, too, which enables the film's final moments to resonate so deeply. It's not overbearing in its seriousness, or contrived in its capacity to tug at the heart-strings.

Rather, it earns its victories and feels all the more emotionally enriching for it. Godzilla Minus One is a genuinely impressive achievement.