Godzilla Minus One - A Kaiju Movie with Interesting Story and Well Created Visual Effects

I have known about this movie for quite some time and was a bit confused why it did not play in Indonesian theaters. Fortunately after months of release in Japan and various other countries, it was finally available in Netflix. Since I was finishing another series earlier, I only watched this yesterday. OK, I'll get right to it then.

Brief Story Line

Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki - Your Name, xxxHolic etc) was a former kamimaze pilot who had survivors guilt after returning home safely to Tokyo when the World War II ended in 1945. He met with Noriko (Minami Hamabe - The Promised Neverland, Ranman TV series etc), a young woman carrying a baby girl who also survived the Tokyo bombing and they all later lived together like a family. Due to difficulty in looking for well paid jobs, Shikishima finally decided to be part of crew on board a small vessel captained by Akitsu (Kuranosuke Sasaki - Hancho TV series etc) and other crews, former Naval officer Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka - Dr. Coto's Clinic TV series, Fukushima 50 etc) and young crewman Mizushima (Yuki Yamada - Pending Train TV series, High & Low movies etc) doing dangerous work of sweeping mines left from war.

During one of their work day, the crew encountered giant dinosaur-like monster referred to by the locals as Godzilla who apparently was going towards Tokyo. With imminent danger on the people's life in Japan, all efforts were done to save them from Godzilla's wrath.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

This movie was not exactly like I had in mind. Perhaps I was biased by the whole time I have been watching the Hollywood version of Godzilla and thought all their movies would only be focusing on the monster while the people were just minor support characters. But this time the movie chose to focus on the people instead. To be honest, at first I was a bit surprised and was not too excited as Godzilla did not appear too much. However, as the story progressed and I got to know more on the characters, I became more receptive to the film. 

As the movie continued, I felt that the main characters story was quite compelling. It was something that I never thought I would feel when watching Godzilla movies that I was more sympathetic towards the human side. And after such a dramatic moment in the middle part, I was getting more emotional with the movie, especially with a wonderfully crafted final third. I loved the climax scene and I think if my wife had watched this, she would feel the same as I did. It might have played out differently and probably gave a more lasting effect, but I did not mind such kind of ending. 

The visual effects of this movie was awesome. Amazingly I did not feel the CGI effect too strong even though I watched it on TV, something that I almost always felt when watching heavy-CGI movies. The visual effects was definitely one of the film's strongest suit as it was so highly regarded that it won the 2023 Academy Awards in the category. It was a really great feat considering it was also the first time Japan and Asian film to be nominated and won the award. I read that they have spent around 8 months to create the effects which truly paid off.

The movie's drama was quite captivating to me due to the characters' background story. Apart from the names I mentioned above, there were also two important support characters, i.e the Navy Air Service technician Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki - The Roundup: No Way Out, The Decagon House Murders TV series etc) and Shikishima's neighbor Sumiko (Sakura Ando - Monster, Shoplifters etc). They also gave additional color. The film was directed by multiple awards winner Takashi Yamazaki (Stand by Me Doraemon, Always: Sunset on Third Street etc) who was also credited as the writer and creator of Visual effects together with Kiyoko Shibuya. It has a duration of 125 minutes which did not have any mid or post end credit scene. Everything important was already shown prior to the start of closing credit (including the scenes that made me curious).

Overall this was an entertaining Godzilla movie. From someone who prefers Kaiju/monster action, I was still able to enjoy the film despite its approach to focus more on the human side which I personally think said a lot about the movie's entertainment value. I am grateful that we have Netflix who had given the chance for us in Indonesia to watch this film. So if you are fans of Godzilla movies and like to see huge Kaiju fights, then you can keep an open mind and give this a try. I think you would be able to enjoy it like I did.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars