I had a long think if it was ok to do this review. After all The Orkney News has someone to do more modern reviews of films, and I had seen this in the cinema not that long ago. But with some circumstances I felt I should get a few reviews for the paper this week. So I welcome you to this new bonus reviews for the week about Tokusatsu.

Let’s get this out of the way first. This film is good, it has also given the Godzilla franchise its first Oscar. That said I don’t view the Oscars as any credible showing of talent anymore and anyone who has looked into their history shouldn’t either.

For those of you that have been watching Godzilla primarily from the monsterverse films, it’s important to know going in that this film is much more in the tone of the original and Shin Godzilla. The film is heavy with being set in a post war Japan and the lead being a former Kamikaze pilot. As such it deals with post war survivors guilt and PTSD.

Those that know what a Kamikaze pilot is may be scratching your head at the notion of a former one. That’s because our lead Kōichi Shikishima played by Ryunosuke Kamiki fakes having plane trouble and lands on Odo island to get repairs from mechanics. One of them, Sōsaku Tachibana points out there’s nothing wrong with the plane, but admits the war is basically over so he doesn’t berate Shikishima for not wanting to throw his life away. That night a large monster attacks the island, identified by one of the engineers as Godzilla/Gojira. It’s not the giant atomic mutant yet but an ancient sea monster dinosaur thing and still pretty big. Tachibana tells Shikishima to get into the plane and use its guns to kill it believing that would work, however in the face of the monsters Shikishima freezes everyone but him and Tachibana are killed.

And then he returns to the ruins of Tokyo, his whole family are dead, as are his nabours children who blame him for not doing his job. As said it is heavy, already throwing feelings of blame on the lead. Shortly he meets Noriko Ōishi who is carrying a baby Akiko in her arms. The three end up just living together being a sort of family, trying to make a living in the shantytown that was once Tokyo.

Things do start to look up for Shikishima gets a job as a minesweeper and bonding with the crew of the little wooden boat, Shikishima however is continually haunted by nightmares of the events on Odo Island. But as we see something getting enraged by the nuclear explosion at Bikini Atoll, we know that those events at the end of the war are coming to haunt him in more than just nightmares.

Minus One is very much praised for making us care about the human cast and that is very true. Many times if a Kaiju film is lacking these bits make us roll our eyes and just want to see the giant monster fights. But Minus One’s cast are very fleshed out and we want to see them.

That doesn’t mean the Kaiju sequences are lacking though. This film has the most amount of times we see Godzilla at sea in action sequences, which given he is a monster of the sea is very fitting. Every sequence with him in it is exceedingly tense and terrifying. Godzilla alludes to a feeling of hopelessness and despair in this film, maybe not the unstoppable god that may wipe out all life on Earth like in Shin, but this is a nation struggling to recover and now they face this. We feel the terror as the small boat tries desperately to not be destroyed while Godzilla chases them. When he makes landfall we get a truly tense feeling of dread leading up to his atomic breath. The final act of the film sees people band together in one last attempt at stopping Godzilla but without any super weapon or other Kaiju. You want the plan to succeed as you have come to care about these people.

This film is not a happy go lucky let’s look at the cool Kaiju action. Godzilla is there and impressive, but it’s not the hey it’s Godzilla, cool! It’s a OH NO!

That’s not saying you can’t do the latter, Godzilla X Kong New Empire has also done exceedingly well showing both serious dark and crazy fun versions of the character can exist simultaneously.

When Minus One was released only in Japan for home media, it instantly became the most pirated film in the world. The moment it came out in the rest of the world on services like Netflix, it became the most streamed film.  I can’t recommend watching this film enough. If you don’t have a subscription to a service that can watch it, find a friend who does and go to theirs for a movie night. Just bring something for them too.