The Foreign Film Series: ‘Godzilla: Minus One’ is a triumphant roar

By Ben Konuch

“Everyone who survived the war, they deserve to have a life again.”

On the Tuesday evening of December 3, dozens of Cedarville students packed into the DeVries Theatre to watch the final screening of the semester for The Foreign Film Series. This screening, “Godzilla: Minus One” attracted one of the largest crowds of The Foreign Film Series as audience members laughed, gasped, and cheered together for each twist and turn.

“Godzilla: Minus One” released in theatres internationally only a year ago on December 1, making its appearance at The Foreign Film Series all the more special for students who never got a chance to see it before. It was the 37th film in the “Godzilla” franchise and served as a reboot and reintroduction of the character into the public eye, garnering international fame, positive critical reception, and an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects to beat nominated Hollywood films with over ten times its budget.

So, does it live up to the hype?

In my opinion, “Godzilla: Minus One” is a phenomenal film, not just for its incredible spectacle, but for an engaging and emotional story. One common criticism against the monster genre, and many American attempts to bring “Godzilla” to Hollywood, is that it’s hard to create a story focused around a monster and its destruction that still makes us care about the human characters that the story is told through. While, yes, “Godzilla: Minus One” has incredible visual effects with only a $15 million budget, its greatest triumph is actually the story and the themes that it presents.

“Godzilla is one of the longest-running film franchises of all time, and originated as a metaphor for the fear of nuclear weapons,” said Professor Daniel Clark of the Department of English, Literature and Modern Languages. “This film returns the franchise to that very real, very visceral fear.”

The story follows Kōichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot who returns from his assignment alive at the end of World War II. While stationed with his repair garrison, Shikishima witnesses an unspeakable horror massacre every soldier except himself and one other. Returning to Japan wracked with survivor’s guilt, he manages to build an unexpected family with Noriko, a woman who survived the bombing of Tokyo and Akiko, the orphaned child both of them begin to care for. But when the same monster surfaces at the edge of Tokyo, Shikishima realizes he must face his terror to protect everything he holds dear from the destruction of Godzilla.

I’m not the only one in attendance who found that the film’s emotionally charged story was one of its greatest strengths, as the showing was quick to erupt into audible gasps and cheers at emotional moments in the film. As the credits rolled, the audience broke into applause and many stayed for the talkback hosted by Professor Clark. We may have come to see the spectacle of Godzilla, but we stayed for the emotionally resonant story and its characters.

“Godzilla: Minus One” is also a fascinating cultural text, as the post-war story that it tells directly dismantles many of the common wartime narratives that prevailed in Japan during this era. Notably, the film posed that the notion of kamikaze pilots being fearless and longing to die for the emperor was not always the case. In the film, Shikishima starts out afraid of death, and while everyone around him shuns him for his unwillingness to die for a cause that he no longer believes in, the film asks its audience to reevaluate the demand of a culture willing to send its boys to kill themselves for the glory of a losing war. 

The notion of the glory of war itself is a philosophy that “Minus One” attacks, as one character who never fought in the war expresses his desire for it to have gone on longer so he could have tasted combat. When this is voiced, Shikishima becomes furious against his foolish words, challenging the cultural ideology that war is the ultimate proving ground of bravery instead of the slaughter of innocence. The film also levies harsh criticism against wartime Japan’s leadership and the willingness to sacrifice lives unflinchingly for the pursuit of the “greater good.”

What “Minus One” does enforce, however, is the value of life over the value of death. To a period in history where a nation would rather value a dead, “honorable” soldier over a dishonored, living one, the film shouts triumphantly that our greatest value is fighting for life instead of death. Bravery, selflessness and codependency are all needed in order to have a chance at defeating Godzilla, but the film stresses the importance of every single life involved in the fight. Shikishima, who begins the film tasked with dying but is afraid to, ends it tasked with living for those dependent on him but willing to risk his life if it means giving them a greater future.

“Ultimately the film resists the idea that kamikaze and self-sacrifice is a requirement of a noble hero,” said Janie Walenda, Cedars Arts & Entertainment Editor and attendee of Tuesday’s showing. “Shikishima’s journey isn’t just about living for Noriko or Akiko, he has to want to live. He has to end his war for his own sake, not for theirs.”

Perhaps the most special aspect of this screening of The Foreign Film series, though, was the way that dozens of Cedarville students gathered to cry and cheer for a film that sought to revitalize interest into an iconic part of cinema’s history. Although the “Godzilla” franchise has been active since the 1950s, “Godzilla: Minus One” not only found a fresh approach to storytelling within its franchise but revitalized and retold to a new audience exactly what made “Godzilla” so culturally relevant. Enough so, that in 2024, a theatre filled with college students from the cornfields of Ohio cheered and applauded for a franchise and cultural icon that they may have never known otherwise.

“Godzilla: Minus One” is now available buy in physical and digital copies, and is now streaming on Netflix

Ben Konuch is a senior Strategic Communication student who serves as a writer for Cedars A&E and as their social media lead. He enjoys getting sucked into good stories, playing video games and swing dancing in the rain.

Images courtesy of Toho Studios.