GODZILLA MINUS ONE

A Rumble in Tokyo’s Postwar Rubble

Venue: 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku. Look for [英語字幕].
March 15 (Fri), 2024-: Check the each theater.
Official website: godzilla-movie2023.toho.co.jp/
Theater website: 109cinemas.net/premiumshinjuku/
Trailer: https://bit.ly/3G0IkP5
Tariff:  Please check on the theater site.
Advance tickets: Please check on the theater site.
Talk event: Please check on the theater site.

Title: ゴジラ−1.0 (GODZILLA−1.0)
Director: Takashi Yamazaki (山崎貴)
Duration: 125 min

Celebrate the newly minted Best Visual Effects Oscar winners behind Godzilla Minus One, which made history last week in Hollywood and now hits theaters once again with English subtitles for encore screenings. VFX wizard/director Takashi Yamazaki's king of monsters is not only truly terrifying, it really throttles all previous iterations.

The first Japanese-produced Godzilla film since 2016’s Shin Godzilla and the 37th installment of the legendary kaiju franchise, it pays tribute to the series’ roots in the 1950s, spanning a period from just as the war ends through the ensuing years of postwar devastation and despair. Godzilla Minus One refers to a time when Japan feels like it has to rebuild from zero. When the monster arrives, it plunges the nation into a less-than-zero state.

Our first glimpse of the titular kaiju arrives in the opening moments, when an understandably timid kamikaze pilot, Koichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki), has just feigned engine trouble and landed on an island in the Pacific for repairs. With the first attack of the prehistoric beast, he once again runs from responsibility, and winds up one of only a few who survive. (Another is an aircraft mechanic played impressively by Munetaka Aoki, of Rurouni Kenshin fame.)

Koichi later arrives in a decimated Tokyo, where he’s lost everyone and everything. A former neighbor helps him restart his life, and he gets a job with a team of weapons scientists who are defusing sea mines left over from the war. Although he continues to be tortured by his inaction during wartime, he is soon living platonically with Noriko (Minami Hamabe, currently Kamiki’s costar on the hit NHK series Ranman), who is also orphaned and alone. Together, they begin raising an abandoned baby with the help of Sumiko (Sakura Ando), as Tokyo begins to rebuild around them.

But then, the melodrama subsides and the titular beast returns. As he begins wreaking fearsome havoc and appears unstoppable, Koichi steps up to the plate and bravely works to defeat the seemingly invincible foe.

The final 30 minutes are absolutely exhilarating.

109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku