Any film buff might have at least seen one Godzilla film in their lives. While Monsterverse films haven’t received great reviews, they sure are audio-visual spectacles which any theatre movie goer would enjoy. However, Godzilla Minus One has nothing to do with the Monsterverse and is an original Japanese film which showcases Godzilla as a Kaiju and not the great saviour he’s depicted in the present Hollywood. Surprisingly, Godzilla Minus One has received glorious reviews with an 8.4 IMDB rating and 98% approval rating on RT, making a case for the best Godzilla film ever made. The film released in Japan last month and is all set to hit US theatres today. The following section contains the full plot summary and the ending explanation which means, MAJOR SPOILERS for the film follow below, so beware.
Godzilla Minus One Full Plot Summary and Recap
In 1945, at the end of World War II, Kōichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot, feigns technical issues with his plane and lands on Odo Island. A dinosaur-like creature, Godzilla, appears during the night and attacks the island, killing everybody except Kōichi and the lead mechanic, Sōsaku Tachibana, who blames Kōichi for the deaths of the others. Two years later after the war, following his return to Tokyo, Kōichi is plagued by survivor’s guilt. He has started a relationship with Noriko Ōishi and they have adopted a child whose parents were lost in the bombing of Tokyo. Godzilla is mutated and enlarged by the U.S. nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll, and it destroys several U.S. warships before heading for Japan. The U.S. refuses to aid Japan owing to tensions with the Soviet Union.
Working aboard a minesweeper called the Shinsei Maru, Kōichi meets scientist Kenji Noda. The minesweeper’s crew are tasked with stopping Godzilla’s approach to Japan. They release a mine into Godzilla’s mouth and detonate it, but Godzilla regenerates from its injury. The heavy cruiser Takao then arrives and engages Zilla, but is subsequently destroyed when it unleashes its atomic breath. Kōichi tells Noriko about Godzilla’s attack, expressing his survivor’s guilt to her. Godzilla makes landfall, attacking Ginza in Tokyo. Noriko witnesses the attack, while Kōichi attempts to rescue her. Meanwhile, the Japanese military attempts to engage Godzilla, but it fires its atomic breath, decimating Tokyo and seemingly killing Noriko among thousands of others.
While Zilla returns to the ocean, Kenji comes up with a plan to kill Godzilla, although the government refuses to help, leaving it up to the remaining civilians and Naval veterans to enact it. Kōichi recruits a reluctant Sōsaku to repair a broken-down prototype Kyushu J7W Shinden fighter, which Kōichi will fly into Godzilla’s mouth and destroy it from the inside. Meanwhile, Kenji plots to destroy Godzilla by surrounding him with Freon tanks and rupturing them, lowering the water’s buoyancy and sinking it to a depth of 1,500 meters, letting the resultant pressure crush it. Should that plan fail, balloons would be inflated under Zilla to force it back up to the surface, killing it through explosive decompression.
Zilla is dragged down to 1,500 meters but manages to survive. The balloons are activated, forcing Godzilla up to 800 meters, but it manages to break free. Two ships try to haul Godzilla to the surface but don’t have enough power to do so. A fleet of tugboats lend their assistance and Zilla is brought to the surface, injuring but not killing it. Enraged, Godzilla prepares to destroy all of the ships with its atomic breath. Kōichi flies the plane into Zilla’s mouth, destroying its head and overloading its atomic breath, which destroys the rest of its body. The crew assumes Kōichi sacrificed himself to stop Godzilla’s atomic breath but look above to find that he has survived. They cheer and salute him, knowing he ejected from the plane.
Back at the port, Kōichi receives a telegram and heads to the hospital with Akiko, where he reunites with Noriko, who survived the destruction, albeit with what appears to be radiation sickness. Meanwhile, a chunk of Godzilla’s remaining flesh sinks to the bottom of the ocean and begins to regenerate. This is where the film ends leaving a scope for the future and potentially laying the roots for a franchise.
Godzilla Minus One will release in US theatres on December 1, 2023.
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