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You have to wonder, when Ishiro Honda helmed the first Godzilla film in 1954, did he have any inkling at the time of the enduring cinematic icon he was to forge? 70 years and 37 films later (and that's discounting the American studio films), his monstrous reptilian creation has been villain and hero, monster and god. In Honda's original film, Godzilla personified the horror of the destruction wreaked upon Japan by nuclear explosives. It was a serious melodrama punctuated with memorable scenes of monster destruction. Later installments brought a more comic-book sensibility. Godzilla, either as destroyer or protector, grappled with other outsized creatures or technological threats in battles that increasingly resembled costumed wrestling bouts. 2016's Shin Godzilla was a return to roots for the franchise, re-emphasizing the big G as a nigh-insurmountable force of destruction upon humanity. My only issue was that the film's satire on the red-tapism of Japanese bureaucracy while dealing with the Fukushima crisis took up huge swathes of the narrative without being dramatically interesting.
The long gap till the next live-action Godzilla feature was primarily on account of a no-competition agreement between franchise owner Toho and Hollywood based Legend Entertainment who'd obtained a license to make their own set of Monsterverse pictures featuring Godzilla with other giant creatures in more technologically advanced versions of the costumed wrestling bouts. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic further postponed the project from 2019-2022. But it would seem that the additional time was well used by writer director Takashi Yamazaki, because at least in my humble opinion, Godzilla Minus One (GMO) has the best human drama in a Godzilla film since the 1954 original.
Set in the aftermath of WW2, when Japan is still reeling under the loss of the war and the untold destruction of the atomic bomb, the film is yet another reboot of the giant reptile's cinematic legend. Our protagonist Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot landed on the repair base on Odo island, ostensibly due to technical issues. The aircraft technician Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) rightly guesses that Shikishima has abandoned the mission, not wanting to throw his life away on a lost cause. That night, Godzilla in a smaller avatar emerges from the sea and attacks the base. Shikishima's fear paralyses him from trying to save the island crew from the creature.
After Shikishima returns to a ravaged Japan, he meets young Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a survivor who has adopted an orphaned baby, and they form a makeshift family. But like Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (or its Bollywood inspiration in Amitabh Bachchan's Vijay Pal Singh from Kaala Patthar) Shikishima cannot escape guilt over his cowardice. It colors his whole outlook, reflects even in his choice of profession, clearing deep sea mines off the Japanese coast. In this situation, he faces the return of an old nightmare - Godzilla resurfaces, now several times bigger and more powerful, an angry God laying waste all around while every attempt to counter him fails miserably.
Unlike the Hollywood Godzilla films (and several of Toho's own), GMO's human characters are not dull fodder to endure while awaiting the next episode of monster mayhem. In fact Shikishima's saga of failure and eventual redemption is the main story here, and people looking purely for monster thrills should check their expectations. That's not to say that the film lacks in destructive spectacle, far from it. Director Yamazaki was himself responsible for the visual FX which garnered the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for what it achieved on a fraction of Hollywood budgets. Like in Shin Godzilla, the big G is a unstoppable force. The recreation of the iconic scene from the '54 film where Godzilla attacks a train gives one goosebumps. Shusuke Kaneko's genre-revitalizing kaiju films from the 90's are also respectfully referenced. The more somber arc of this narrative means that humans must pay a heavy price for the destruction the monster wreaks. But it is in the face of ultimate crisis that from our innermost recesses we dig out hope.
