Shin Godzilla

I am writing this as someone who is on my way to get a naturalization in Japan, lol. It is quite hard to explain this movie to a non Japanese. Side effects aside, it is more to the attachment value of Godzilla/Gojira to the Japanese rather than what you see on the surface while watching this movie. That's why Japanese really like this movie.

This is a political movie, yes. If you don't like politics and expect an intense fight with Gojira the whole time like those western movie, this movie might not be for you. There are so many political issues they need to handle with. How the government should react when something not written inside the manual happened to the country, what the Prime Minister should do in time of crisis; stay with the people or run away, surrender to pressure or think of other way out. How the ministers should react fast to support the country; find a way out or give up. And probably the most critical point, what Japanese should do for Japan; ask for help from outside to take over or ask for help but still take control of the overall decision. This movie also tackled on sensitive issue for Japanese; the nuclear and radioactive stuffs and the army first big crisis after the post war. Awesome, I tell you.

Non Japanese might find all these stuffs are hard to relate thus tend to focus on the weird side effects, weird Gojira movement. Not to mention the music is so Japanese in so many ways. Try to see this movie in Japanese POV and you will find this movie is an extremely good one. Recommended. 

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"What's the real threat to us, man or Gojira?"

I had watched Shin Godzilla five ago and was underwhelmed. I’ve wanted to rewatch it in order to write a review and see if my opinion would change but the film has been unavailable for years. HBO Max recently added it to their content. I donned one of my Godzilla T-shirts in order to set the mood for a rewatch. SG still had the elements I didn’t care for on my initial viewing but I did bump my score up this time around.

When a giant googly-eyed creature arises from the harbor and inexplicably crawls out onto land, Japan’s government has to act quickly in order to deal with the destructive beast. Best SpongeBob voice~~Two days later~~ Bureaucrats argue over who needs to take responsibility and who has the proper rank to make decisions and can be listened to. The Prime Minister refuses to use military force if even one civilian will be harmed. Um, dude, did you not notice the giant mutating monster crushing buildings, cars, and mass transit systems with hundreds, possibly thousands of people in them? A rogue government official puts together a team to find alternate ways to deal with Gojira, but the wheels of government move s-l-o-w-l-y.

The first time I watched this film I was bored out of my mind. It was described as a political thriller. Suffice it to say I found the endless meetings of stuffed shirts sitting at long tables with microphones less than scintillating. Same feeling this time around. Every time the rigid hierarchy blathered on and on and on and on I completely lost interest. I get that it was supposed to be a scathing commentary on the slow-moving ineffectual decision making processes of the government but it felt like watching it in real time. Yaguchi’s team which included Takahashi Issei was much more entertaining.

The PM’s decision-making process was mind boggling. "Evacuate the people!” “Where?” “Come again?” Later, evacuation was bad. “We can’t evacuate the people because it will cause them to be fearful.” You mean, a giant monster that has destroyed most of Tokyo didn’t instill any fear or panic in the people? Nearly two hours of bureaucrats fearful of making the wrong decisions and hurting their reputations dragged interminably. Even the international “intrigue” was bland.

What did work? While I was no fan of the initial googly-eyed bleeding carpet that crawled on shore, the rapid evolution of Godzilla was interesting. When he reached his “final” powerful form he was a destroyer to behold. Whenever the film shifted focus to Big G my score went up and then came crashing down as the government officials went back to their meetings. “We would have to convene a meeting to stop having meetings!”

The pointed commentary on the weaknesses of the government and international issues would have worked better for me if they’d tightened the story, reduced the length of the long ineffectual meetings (we get it, these guys are bad at making decisions!), focused on Yaguchi’s team and of course the star of the show. When the spotlight was on Gojira he was a terrifying sight even if the government was too busy deciding what to order for lunch to notice.

9 December 2025
Pet peeves: The one team wore their respirators wrong, unless they wanted the gaping spaces which defeated the purpose of wearing them. The bombers were B-2s, not B-1s. When on a limited evacuation schedule, instead of using helicopters to evacuate handfuls of people at a time, bring in the C-5s that could evacuate the city quickly. Eventually, as film producers and drama/tv show producers realize there is an international audience, perhaps they will work harder to find people who can believably speak what is supposed to be their native language.



Spoilerish comments: The final scene was a little on the nose regarding Japan always having to live in the shadow of its past and the atomic age. While the image was imposing, the climax was decidedly anti-climactic.

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