I think I was one of the few people in the United States who saw Shin Godzilla when the Japanese monster movie landed on the big screen back in October 2016. That's a shame considering it was both a harrowing disaster film and a biting political satire. However, over the years, I guess I forgot just how terrifying and hilarious Hideaki Anno Shinji Higuchi’s movie was.
When I caught wind that a new Toho kaiju movie, titled Godzilla Minus One, was in the works, vague memories of my experience with the previous film began to resurface like the iconic monster rising from Tokyo Bay. That recent revisit to what is honestly one of the best Godzilla movies was an incredible experience, especially considering how much the world has changed in the past seven years.
An Un-Evolved Godzilla Crawling Through Tokyo Is Nightmare Fuel
Unlike a lot of the other movies in the franchise, Shin Godzilla's version of the monster doesn’t rise from the bottom of the sea fully evolved. Instead of the towering “King of the Monsters” fans have come to know, love and fear, this incarnation is a slow-moving, clumsy and almost childlike beast.
Though he has what could best be described as googly eyes and a facial expression that’s more akin to a puppy than a nuclear-powered destroyer of worlds, it’s this lack of coordination and intellect that makes him so damn terrifying. Later on, the fully evolved Godzilla can sense attacks by the Japanese and U.S. militaries, but this earlier form is raw, destructive and terrorizes the streets of Tokyo indiscriminately without a plan of attack or reason for his actions. He’s the embodiment of pure destruction and devastation without sentient thought.
Oh, and the blood pouring out of Godzilla’s gills as he crawls over countless buildings, vehicles, and people in the Kamata district of Tokyo is exceptionally unsettling. Imagine going about your day witnessing the destruction of your home and all worldly possessions, and then being doused with radioactive blood.
Okay, There Are Times When This Movie Feels Like Veep Meets Godzilla
Veep is one of my favorite HBO shows, and I miss it dearly. The humor was wonderful, the characters were some of the most well-written on TV during its seven-season run, and it did a wonderful job of satirizing the good, the bad and the ugly of American politics. Shin Godzilla does the same thing, but instead of the various controversies involving Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina Meyer, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s monster movie has the Japanese and United States governments dealing with a radiation-spewing, plasma-beam shooting, 118-meter monster that is pretty much indestructible.
There are times throughout the movie where it seems like the various high-ranking secretaries (and low-level government officials) are more concerned with decorum and making themselves look good than actually taking care of the problem at hand. One of the best examples of this bureaucratic system comes early on when several government heads express that they need a meeting to set up a meeting to then prepare for a press conference, all while shuffling from a small room to a large room and back and forth several times.
The Way The Movie Handles The Response To Godzilla Is Unnerving
At the same time, however, the way Shin Godzilla presents the government’s response to the arrival of the kaiju is incredibly unnerving. Sure Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi (Hiroki Hasegawa) and his team eventually come up with a competent plan that finally addresses the Godzilla issue without turning a large chunk of Tokyo into an inhabitable crater with nuclear fallout for centuries, but it takes forever for the government to get to the point where they actually do something meaningful.
While the political in-fighting, planning, and compromising is going on, the residents of Tokyo are paying for their leaders’ inaction. There’s one shot in particular where a family is preparing to evacuate (way too late, I should add) only for their apartment building to be destroyed in Godzilla’s wake. Watching these scenes unfold, I couldn't help but think about the countless times governments have stood by and been slow to respond as their lack of action ultimately resulted in more lives being lost.
Though unnerving, and incredibly frustrating at times, this element of the movie really drives home the satire of it all, creating a unique tone that finds the perfect balance between horror and comedy, albeit very dark and bleak.
The Way The Film Channels Real World Events Like WWII And The 2011 Earthquake Is Sobering
The original Godzilla movie is often seen as a response to Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic bombings that virtually ended World War II, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the 2016 reboot would do something similar. Upon watching the movie, it’s clear to pick up that Shin Godzilla channels the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, as well as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which followed in its wake. There are so many similarities to those events throughout the movie that some shots make you feel as if you’re watching a documentary about the natural, and subsequent manmade, disasters that resulted in nearly 20,000 deaths in March 2011.
The movie also doesn’t shy away from the history shared by Japan and the United States during and after World War II. It’s quite sobering to watch characters explain that the mobilization of the military is something that hasn’t been done in more than 70 years, even more so when those same officials are discussing the possibility of a U.S.-led coalition dropping a nuclear weapon in an attempt to kill the monster.
There Are Few Times A Monster Movie Has Affected Me In This Way
Maybe it’s the fact that Godzilla doesn’t face any of his iconic enemies; maybe it’s because the movie channels real-life events; and maybe it’s because it finds the perfect balance between horror and comedy. In any case, there are few times a monster movie has affected me in this way. This includes the masterful Monsterverse movies as well. Everything about Shin Godzilla is unsettling and chaotic from its story down to Shiro Sagisu’s menacing, and at times triumphant, score.
Sure, there’s a lot going on, and watching the film with subtitles can lead to your eyes shooting all over the screen to read the captions and character descriptions, and meeting locations at the same time, but it only adds to the jarring experience that is Shin Godzilla.
All in all, I’m so glad I went back and revisited Shin Godzilla after all this time. Though watching the movie at home was as epic as it was on the big screen, it was just as terrifying and awesome as I remembered it being. With Godzilla Minus One holding down a spot on the 2023 movie schedule, I cannot wait to relive it all when the legendary monster returns this December.
