Godzilla Minus One, now on Netflix, is the perfect throwback

This review of Godzilla Minus One was originally posted in conjunction with the film’s theatrical release. It has been updated and reposted since the film is now available on digital platforms.

Godzilla Minus One is the retro movie longtime Godzilla fans have been waiting for. We’re living through an age of abundance for Godzilla media: Over the past seven years, a partnership between Toho and Hollywood Studios has seen three animated films about the giant lizard released on Netflix, two US films, and an Apple TV series that premieres on November 17. Godzilla fans like me have left nothing to be desired. And yet, most of this media was missing something crucial, something that was fundamental to the first films in the Godzilla series: terror.

We have had almost a decade of the fearsome Godzilla. In 2016, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi released the worst Shin-Godzilla – The Wonderful World of Madnesswidely regarded as one of the best entries in the franchise. It promised a return to the petrifying, humanity-destroying Godzilla of the past. But Shin-Godzilla – The Wonderful World of Madness marked a long hiatus in the production of Japanese live-action Godzilla films and heralded the beginning of a colossally successful American era for the great lizard. The American Godzilla media of the last seven years, including Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Kongand these Netflix anime movies, ranges from serviceable to pretty damn good, though its creators borrowed a lot more from the Marvel Cinematic Universe than from classic kaiju matinees.

After years of letting Hollywood take its contractually mandated turn, Toho returns with a literal throwback film that takes Godzilla almost a century into the past. It has no adorable friends in this new live-action historical film produced in Japan. You won’t see him visit Tokyo before a Kaiju depicting marine pollutionor a Reptilian mech that embodies capitalism gone wrong. You won’t see King Kong or hear anything about the Monsterverse.

Instead, Godzilla Minus One remains true to the original recipe. The film that started it all, 1954 Godzilla, mixes horror, classic melodrama and a feverish anti-war message to express the fears of 1950s Japan. Minus one goes even further back in time, with a story set immediately after World War II. Screenwriter and director Takashi Yamazaki (who Lupin III – The First) Imagine how a Japan without a military, without an economy, and without international support would react to Godzilla’s first attack.

So is it a reboot? A remake? A reinterpretation? A bit of everything.

Our reluctant hero is Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot who fakes a plane malfunction in the final hours of the war to avoid death. In a Godzilla film, the giant monsters usually wear the central political metaphorbut in Minus oneKoichi carries this burden on his small human body. As a kamikaze pilot who survived the war, he returns to his neighborhood to find that there is not much left except rubble and a few surviving neighbors.

This is Godzilla storytelling at its base level: we see events through the eyes of Koichi, his neighbors, and his associates, rather than those of knowledgeable government officials, superhuman soldiers, or Godzilla himself. As with any great kaiju film, we spend much of the first half rooting for these lovable folks just before their world is wiped out by hundreds of tons of giant lizards.

Koichi is an unusually bleak lead, even for the more bleak early Godzilla films. He despises himself for his decision to abandon his kamikaze mission, and his neighbors, who have lost their homes and families, aren’t particularly happy to see him either. Nevertheless, together they rebuild bivouac huts and eventually modest homes out of bombed-out blocks, clustered in the Tokyo suburbs. Viewing this as a Godzilla film is like watching people rebuild their lives with a giant box of dominoes.

Minus one is not just aesthetically a period piece: the story itself feels like something preserved from the 1950s. Yamazaki immerses it in the melodrama of a classic historical epic. His characters are Romantics with a capital R, constantly making bold declarations and great sacrifices, and discussing heavy topics where modern characters Joke about Shawarma.

Koichi and his companions discuss the power of non-violence, the value of self-preservation and the unfair expectations that governments place on their populations in times of war. The latter point makes Godzilla Minus One a surprisingly strong pairing with Hayao Miyazaki’s animated semi-biopic The wind is getting strongerand a timely response to Japan’s current military buildup.

Of course, Godzilla appears just as Koichi and his companions begin to open their hearts and come back down to earth. (Technically, he appears earlier in the film, but I’ll spare you the spoilers.) When Godzilla makes his first real impression, he strikes like a 2023 version of the original Godzilla: the living manifestation of nuclear terror. His initial physical destructive power is dwarfed by his heat ray, which, as seen in the trailer, leaves little more than a crater and mushroom cloud.

This is the moment in modern Godzilla films when the heroes deploy mechs, a rival Kaiju, or a state-of-the-art military aircraft. But Minus oneto its credit, it stays true to the original formula and uses historical reality to push aside easy solutions. Most of the Japanese armed forces were decommissioned after the surrender to the US, the remaining warships were sent away for dismantling. The US government won’t help either; it’s afraid to move weapons into the region, which could provoke the worried Soviet Union. So there’s only one group left that can stop Godzilla: the civilian population. It’s a truly terrifying prospect – a group of average citizens against a kaiju.

For those of us younger than 70, it can be challenging to imagine Godzilla as a truly terrifying horror monster. Heck, he appears in an upcoming Children’s book about the power of loveBut in 1954, Godzilla terrified audiences around the world as a metaphor for the imprecise, dispassionate ability of nuclear weapons to level entire cities.

In the back half Minus one recreates this kind of terror with human stakes and an intense political message. Yamazaki weaves together the threads he has carefully laid: Koichi’s sanity, a barely rebuilt Japan, the absent government, the abandoned military, and, in true classic melodrama fashion, a love story. Then he pits them against an indifferent, catastrophic force.

Is Godzilla the threat of nuclear weapons? The temptation to respond to violence with more violence? An indifferent American military in a time of national reconstruction? The fact that Godzilla Minus One Answering these questions highlights what is missing from modern Godzilla media.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed the nearly decade of Godzilla entertainment in America. But as someone who Shin-Godzilla – The Wonderful World of Madness above his Godzilla rankings, who introduced his child to Mothra at far too young an age, and who right now has a Hedorah anatomy poster hanging behind him – that’s the Godzilla I’ve been waiting for.

Godzilla movies offer filmmakers a valuable opportunity to tell political stories not just about individuals, but about communities or even entire nations. And because Godzilla movies always feature a kaiju destroying famous cities and landmarks like a toddler let loose in a Lego museum, people will watch. It’s a fantastic entertainment vessel for big ideas. For years, Godzilla has given us plenty of sugar. But given the state of the world, I’m glad he’s showing up again this time with a little medicine.

Godzilla Minus One Is Streaming on Netflixand is available as a digital loan on Amazon, Lendand similar digital platforms.