Godzilla Minus One
The surprise film of 2023. A powerful, emotional film. The cinematography is unforgettable.
Let me just say that I have not seen a better film this year. Laugh if you want, but I implore you to set aside your doubts and see it.
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the entire film is in Japanese with subtitles. While it could challenge for a best picture Oscar nomination, it has to win the best foreign language award.
The film has a dramatic premise that left a tear in my eye. Beginning in 1945 near the end of WWII, a Japanese Kamikaze pilot, Koichi Shikishima, played with force by Kamiki Ryuwosuke, fakes engine trouble and lands on a Japanese controlled island. When Godzilla attacks and kills most of the soldiers, Koichi survives.
As the war ended, he returns to Japan and finds nothing but destruction. Finding that his family has been killed in the American massive bombings, the films rises to a shocking emotionally intense level.
Besides helping Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a young woman living on the street caring for an abandoned baby, Koichi becomes involved in a plan to confront Godzilla. A number of civilians have devised a confrontation where a pilot is needed. He fights survivors guilt as he teams with Kewji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka), a weapons engineer, and Sosaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki), a mechanic to try and destroy this monster.
The strength of the film flows from the intense desire of the Japanese to rebuild their country after many have lost their families and homes. They don’t embrace either revenge or hatred. They only seek a way to try and live again if that was possible.
And then on top of that is a monster that destroys buildings that survived the war while killing thousands of civilians. He is immune to gunfire and destroys military ships at sea.
Godzilla was first brought to the screen nearly 70 years ago. While it has appeared in various films numerous times, none have been better than this one.
Despite how they started WWII, you watch Japanese citizens show courage and honor as they rise from the ashes that destroyed much of their country. Godzilla was a devastating punishment that they had to endure to recapture an honorable place in the world of human existence.
