Godzilla Minus One trailer takes Japanese Toho series to a dark place

The latest Japanese Godzilla movie takes us back to the 1940s

• by
  
  Oli Welch
  

• on Sep 4, 2023 at 2:56 am

It is widely believed that Godzilla, the giant monster that rose from the sea in Ichiro Honda’s 1954 film, was a manifestation of postwar Japan’s trauma. Allegory of nuclear weapons, perhaps after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or a personification of a vengeful and destructive United States of America

Since then, the giant lizard has taken many forms. Some nicer than others. But its historical connection to Japan’s darkest days has perhaps never been more evident Godzilla minus oneGodzilla, the new Japanese live-action movie from Toho, which hits US theaters on December 1.

The latest trailer for the movie makes it clear. Godzilla minus one Set in the late 1940s, the creature is shown attacking a country already brought to its knees by defeat in World War II. Explaining the film’s title in a press release, Toho said in stark terms: “After the war, the economic situation in Japan dropped to zero. Godzilla appears and plunges the country into a negative state.”

If that wasn’t charged with post-war misery enough, the trailer cuts from carnage wrought by Godzilla to footage of nuclear explosions, corpses of dead soldiers, and a woman screaming “You disgrace!” On a man in uniform and a figure saying “This monster will never forgive us”.

if Shin Godzilla was a satire on Japanese politics that sought to recast Godzilla in light of the 2011 tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and then Godzilla minus one Returns the Big Green Man to his original frame of reference. But both films seem to share a desire to recapture some of the monster’s initial terror.

Godzilla minus one Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, it will be the 33rd Toho Godzilla film, and the first in live-action since then. Shin Godzilla. The company’s deal with Legendary Pictures, which makes the American Godzilla “Monsterverse” films, prevents it from releasing a live-action movie in the same year as Legendary, which released entries in 2019 and 2021. The good news is that Toho is therefore motivated to give Minus one Rapid release this year in the US, ahead of the legendary Unleashed Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire In the year 2024.

And if that’s not enough for you, remember the Monsterverse spin-off series from Apple TV Plus Monarch: Legacy of Beasts debuted in november.

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