It’s a great time to be a Godzilla fan. We received not one, but two major live-action Godzilla movies in the span of a year with Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla X Kong The New Empire. Godzilla Minus One, in particular, has received universal praise, even winning Best Visual Effects at the Oscars earlier this year.

Here in Southeast Asia, it’s unfortunate that fans of the King of the Monsters have had to miss out on Godzilla Minus One just because Toho, or whoever the regional distributors are, decided not to release it in the region. Now that Godzilla Minus One is out on Blu-Ray in Japan, we can finally join in and see what the hype is all about.

Is Godzilla Minus One worth the hype? Read on to find out.

World War Godzilla

In Godzilla Minus One, Japanese actor Ryunosuke Kamiki plays the main protagonist, Koichi Shikishima. After surviving an encounter with Godzilla and his mistake causing the death of his comrades, he becomes distraught with inner turmoil and burdened with survivor’s guilt and PTSD. The central theme in Godzilla Minus One is overcoming that survivor’s guilt and atoning for one’s mistakes or sins. I see it as also sort of a metaphor for Japan paying for their sins and mistakes during World War 2.

That being said, unlike 2016’s Shin Godzilla, which focused more intently on the issues of dealing with bureaucratic red tape and the flaws within Japan’s governing systems, Godzilla Minus One focuses on a more populist-centric focus. While there are still hints of what Shin Godzilla explored in Godzilla Minus One, most of that focus is now on the characters themselves.

There’s a tragic atmosphere in Godzilla Minus One but it’s not so heavy that it makes the movie overly cynical, bleak or depressing. The stakes are more personal and intimate, resulting in a more emotional narrative compared to the more grandiose gravitas and bigger scale of Shin Godzilla. The point is that there’s a much bigger focus and emphasis on the characters in Godzilla Minus One, making them the highlight and most memorable part of the movie. Godzilla Minus One is more of a character-driven movie. In Shin Godzilla, nobody really cared about the individual characters because the movie was more focused on its grand themes and the big picture of stopping Godzilla.

While yes, Godzilla himself is still very much a massive part of Godzilla Minus One (his name is in the title after all), as are the humans’ efforts and plans to stop his rampage, all of that remains secondary to the plight of the characters and their struggles. That being said, you can still expect a lot of kaiju destruction and grand spectacle. Lest we forget, Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects and it’s very much well-deserved. Godzilla himself is menacing in a way that makes him feel like an actual threat, though not as dread-inducing or horrifying as Shin Godzilla’s version was.

My favourite thing about Godzilla Minus One’s Godzilla is his unique style of the signature atomic breath. The atomic breath of this version of Godzilla starts out like any other before him, with a heat ray or beam. However, what distinguishes it is how the beam explodes on impact, producing a mushroom cloud and a far-reaching blast pressure wave like an actual atomic bomb would. It’s impressive how they managed to do all that on a purported US$15 million production budget.

In my review, I haven’t compared Godzilla Minus One to any of the American MonsterVerse movies by Legendary Entertainment (including the recent Godzilla X Kong The New Empire) and that’s because I believe that it’s pointless to do so. While there are certain lessons that the MonsterVerse movies should learn from Godzilla Minus One, it doesn’t take away from any of the good qualities of the MonsterVerse movies themselves. Both Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla X Kong The New Empire are great movies in their own right, and both are great, fun experiences that are worth watching.

Atomic Dreams

Ultimately, whether you’re here for a movie with great characters and writing or just thrilling kaiju action, Godzilla Minus One proves that you can do both without having to sacrifice one for the other. Despite the tragic nature of the characters and narrative, Godzilla Minus One is a much more hopeful movie compared to the more bleak and cynical Shin Godzilla before it. It will tug on your heartstrings and for the first time, it’s perhaps the rare kaiju movie that you care more about the human characters than the kaijus. For once, the human element is more engrossing than the monster action.

Have any Godzilla movie, or any previous kaiju movie for that matter, made you cry? Godzilla Minus One will.

FINAL SCORE: 90/100

Godzilla Minus One is now available on Blu-Ray in Japan, and it will premiere on Prime Video Japan on 3 May 2024. There is no official news yet on when it will be available on any of the streaming services in Malaysia or Southeast Asia.