Godzilla Minus One (2023) Review: A Monster Born of Guilt

Is Godzilla Minus One worth watching?

Yes. Godzilla Minus One is the best Godzilla film in decades, a monster movie that works first as a moving human drama about survivor’s guilt in a shattered postwar Japan. Takashi Yamazaki makes Godzilla terrifying again, and the attack sequences are staged with a scale and ferocity that belie the film’s modest resources. The reservations are some broad, melodramatic acting and a sentimental streak that will not suit every viewer.

What is Godzilla Minus One about?

Godzilla Minus One is set in the final days of the Second World War and the years that follow. Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot who did not complete his mission, and he returns to a Tokyo reduced to rubble, carrying a shame he cannot shake.

In the ruins he forms an improvised household with Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a young woman caring for an orphaned baby, and takes dangerous work clearing wartime mines from the sea with a small crew that includes the young Mizushima (Yuki Yamada). Just as the country begins to rebuild, a colossal creature rises from the ocean, and a nation already brought to zero is pushed into negative territory. With the government slow to act, ordinary civilians and veterans must decide whether to face Godzilla themselves.

Takashi Yamazaki writes, directs and supervised the visual effects for this Japanese-language production from Japan, which runs 124 minutes. It won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and the Japan Academy Film Prize for Picture of the Year.

A human story first, a monster movie second

What distinguishes the film from most modern blockbusters is how much it cares about its people. Shikishima’s guilt drives everything; he is a man who survived when he believes he should not have, and his arc is about whether he can choose to live rather than simply endure. Ryunosuke Kamiki plays him with raw, sometimes overwrought intensity, but the emotion is sincere and it grounds the spectacle.

The makeshift family at the film’s centre is its emotional anchor. Minami Hamabe brings warmth and resilience to Noriko, and the scenes of scavenging, rebuilding and tentative domesticity give the film a quiet, neorealist texture before the monster disrupts everything. Yamazaki treats postwar poverty and national trauma seriously, echoing the grief that shaped the original 1954 Godzilla.

Godzilla as a force of nature and history

When Godzilla appears, the film becomes genuinely frightening. Yamazaki’s creature is huge, relentless and almost malevolent, and its signature atomic breath is staged as a horrifying weapon, a clear echo of nuclear devastation. The sequences at sea are particularly effective, with small boats dwarfed by the creature and the camera placed at human level to maximise the sense of helplessness.

The visual effects are remarkable for a film made on a fraction of a Hollywood budget, and the sound design and Naoki Sato’s score, with its nods to Akira Ifukube’s classic theme, give Godzilla the aura of an ancient catastrophe. The film also offers a pointed critique of wartime leadership that squandered lives, making civilian cooperation its answer.

Where sentiment gets the upper hand

The film’s emotional directness is both its strength and its weakness. Some performances lean into theatrical anguish, and a few dialogue scenes spell out themes the images have already made clear. The supporting characters, while likeable, are sketched in broad strokes, and the melodrama occasionally tips into sentimentality. Viewers expecting constant monster action should also know that Godzilla is off screen for long stretches.

Who should watch Godzilla Minus One?

It is a must for kaiju fans and a surprisingly strong recommendation for viewers who usually avoid monster movies, since the drama carries as much weight as the destruction. At a little over two hours, it is well paced. Expect scenes of wartime death, destruction and peril, including civilian casualties, though it is rarely graphic; it suits older children with guidance, teenagers and adults.

Worth watching next:

• Seven Samurai, Kurosawa’s classic from the same year as the first Godzilla, about ordinary people banding together against a deadly threat.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion, from Hideaki Anno, whose Shin Godzilla preceded this film, for another Japanese vision of apocalyptic trauma.

The verdict

Godzilla Minus One is a triumph of emotional storytelling and old-fashioned craft, a monster movie that restores the character’s original power as a symbol of national trauma. Its melodrama will not suit everyone, but its human core and spectacular set pieces place it among the finest monster movies ever made.

Rating: 4.5/5