I never saw this when it came to movie screens back in 2023. I’d heard it was excellent, but my apathy toward

I have now addressed this and am all the better for it. Godzilla Minus One is a sometimes silly but mostly moving film. I didn’t expect it to be a portrait of a man suffering from trauma—not because of Godzilla, but because of the horrors of World War 2.

Most of the film is set in post-war Japan, but the opening scenes occur during the final stages of WW2. Pilot K?ichi Shikishima returns to Odo Island during a kamikaze run, feigning damage to his plane. That night, K?ichi and the engineers on the island come face to face with Godzilla. He’s large but not the behemoth we know. K?ichi loses the courage to take Godzilla down with the guns on his plane*, leading the beast to kill everyone, bar one engineer.

It’s a stunning opening, a sure sign that you’re in the hands of an assured filmmaker. But Godzilla Minus One doesn’t stop there. K?ichi comes home to find his home in ruin and his family dead. The next-door neighbour berates him for not dying like an honourable kamikaze. During a trip to the market, he is accosted by a young woman holding a baby and fleeing from an angry merchant for stealing food. The girl, Noriko, shoves a baby into K?ichi’s hands. Later, she meets up with K?ichi and takes the baby girl back—it’s not hers but a woman who died during the bombings. K?ichi reluctantly offers Noriko and the baby a place to stay.

In the meantime, emboldened by nuclear weaponry, Godzilla has grown to a colossal size. Pissed with the world, he heads to the Japanese coastline seeking vengeance against the irritating humans.

Given the limited budget, we don’t get as much Godzilla as I’m sure fans would have liked. But Yamazaki ensures that when the monster appears, it has an impact. Whether on water or land, you feel every single blow and titanic blast from Godzilla’s death ray. The attack on coastal Japan is simply fantastic.

The sparing use of Godzilla means more time is spent on the characters. K?ichi (Ryunoskue Kamiki) and Noriko (Minami Hamabe) are terrific as a couple raising a child. They are never intimate, even though they love each other. The holdback is K?ichi, haunted by all those engineers he saw ripped apart by Godzilla, still wracked with guilt. You don’t expect this level of depth in a monster film, but here it is. I also loved the supporting cast: K?ichi’s co-workers who, before Godzilla’s appearance, traversed the seas in wooden fishing boats looking for mines. Yes, it’s a tad coincidental that one of the crewmembers, Kenji (played with manic energy by Hidetaka Yoshioka), spearheads a Navy ploy to bring Godzilla down, but hey, I’m happy to let that one go.

Even if, like me, you can see the climax coming a mile off, that doesn’t make it any less gripping or emotional.

Did Godzilla Minus One convince me to watch more Godzilla, King Kong, or monster films? The answer is maybe—although unless I’m told otherwise, I doubt many will be as good as this one. 

*It’s unlikely the guns would have worked, but that’s not the point.