As someone who hasn’t seen any of the Japanese Godzilla films, I was interested in this one when I heard that they were going to release it to western theaters. However, I’m sad to say that once again, the UK always ends up forgotten about in the distribution department so we don’t often get such things here.
I’d been hoping that ‘Godzilla Minus One’ would get a release of some description in the UK and I was fortunate enough that it was on Netflix last weekend. So of course the first thing I did was watch it and it was certainly worth the wait.
The film centers around Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a Kamikaze piolet who is suffering from survivor’s guilt after his military base is destroyed by Godzilla towards the end of World War 2. All of this because Koichi failed to kill Godzilla during the attack on the military base.
Upon his return home, a homeless woman called Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe) along with a baby girl she has rescued have moved into his home whilst he was at war. It isn’t before long before Koichi has a new purpose in life.
However it doesn’t last for very long; not long afterwards Koichi joins a group of veterans…just before Godzilla returns to destroy Japan yet again.
Despite the film clearly being very low budget, I very much enjoyed this. I thought it was interesting to see how the Japanese handled Godzilla in comparison to how western studios like Warner Bros (who are behind the Monster Verse films) handle him. Especially the human storyline. Not since ‘Kong: Skull Island’ have I actually cared about the human characters on a monster film and this made a very pleasant change.
Godzilla himself- despite his limited screentime of ten minutes- was amazing (fully cgi this time and not a guy in a rubber suit!). I also, of course enjoyed the score to the film by Naoki Satô. I couldn’t help but grin on hearing the original Godzilla theme tune.
Over all, if you enjoy a good monster film with a compelling human storyline, I highly recommend this. Thank you Toho Studios for an amazing experience!
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