No matter what suffering, loss, and devastation you experience in life, there is always something worth living for. This message is at the heart of Toho’s latest installment of the Godzilla series, Godzilla His Minus One.
The new film returns the iconic monster to its roots in a story set in post-war Japan. It’s a brutal time in which cinema allows us to explore the resilience of the human spirit in coming to terms with loss and regret.
It’s rare to find such depth in American films today. Especially in a well-crafted, crowd-pleasing action movie.
Koichi Shikishima (Ryuunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot who feigns mechanical failure to avoid conducting suicide missions. When Godzilla attacked the repair island he had landed on, he froze and was unable to shoot the monster from his plane. As a result, all but one of the engineers on the island died, placing the blame on Shikishima and his vileness.
Shikishima is overcome with guilt and is humiliated by the neighbors when he returns home, but he tries to move on by taking in a homeless woman with a baby who was abandoned by her parents. The two agreed to raise children, and several years passed and they became a family of sorts, despite his reluctance to accept them as such. He serves as a gunman on a minesweeper, joining a ragtag team of veterans.
The peace that the protagonist finds does not last long. Godzilla reappears twice as big and twice as powerful, causing destruction to all of Japan. Since the government is reluctant to help the people, Shikishima takes it upon himself to join the National Army formed to defeat Godzilla. The series reaches new heights in its depiction of this battle with beautifully staged scenes of monster mayhem. But it is Shikishima’s inner conflict that elevates the film emotionally and sets it apart from its predecessors.
Can this failed commando learn to let go of the past and embrace a new kind of sacrifice, one that honors those who died by continuing to fight? You rarely find depth. Especially in a well-crafted, crowd-pleasing action movie. And audiences clearly crave rich entertainment like this, rather than the usual ideological remakes or sickening fables about racism.
The runaway success of Toho Godzilla at the domestic and international box office shows just how defenseless Hollywood is against would-be conquerors. Will the American production “Godzilla x Kong: New Empire”, released this spring, resist? Not to sound unpatriotic, but a humiliating defeat isn’t all bad. When it comes to wake-up calls, you can do worse than a 20,000-ton radioactive lizard.
