Godzilla Minus Zero: Buy tickets for the biggest screen near you

Godzilla Minus Zero

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Director: Takashi Yamazaki

Cert: 15A

Genre: Action

Starring: Minami Hamabe, Min Tanaka, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Masami Nagasawa, Yuki Yamada, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Jun Kunimura, Sakura Ando, Miou Tanaka

Running Time: 2 hrs 15 mins

Toho Studios introduced Godzilla in 1954 with Ishiro Honda’s immortal original kaiju, a receptacle for contemporaneous Japan’s post-atom-bomb anxiety. Twenty-nine sequels, one spin-off cartoon and one resplendent tribute metal band later, the gigantor has a lot to live up to.

Godzilla Minus One, the extraordinary 2023 prequel, yoked American imperialism, postwar malaise and survivor guilt to thrilling action.

Takashi Yamazaki, the writer-director of that global smash, returns for Godzilla Minus Zero, an early-cold-war sequel to Godzilla Minus One set in postwar Japan in 1949.

Ryunosuke Kamiki reprises his role as former kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima, now living with his wife, Noriko (Minami Hamabe), and their adopted daughter, Akiko (Sae Nagatani).

Their fragile domestic life is disrupted by the marauding King Ghidorah, a formidable three-headed monster tossing town after town with a city-raising bark. American “allies” offer to lend a hand, but they and others have darker motivations.

Godzilla, previously presumed dead and pulverised, is duly summoned up from the depths.

Move over, puny American monsters. The first R-rated Godzilla film features gory fights, visceral urban destruction and harrowing re-creations of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing of 1945.

The pace is relentless. Naoki Sato’s score builds and breaks. Team players, including Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka), who leads a disaster-response team, ace meteorologist Makoto Aoyama (Masami Nagasawa) and biologist Professor Murakami (Min Tanaka), are introduced briskly.

Koichi and Noriko are inevitably drawn back into the crisis, reviving the previous conflict between family responsibilities and national duty.

[ Godzilla used to be a metaphor for nuclear horror. Nowadays the monsters are metaphors for the lumbering franchises they appear inOpens in new window ]

The fast cuts that define Hollywood’s inferior franchise efforts make way for intricate physical detail. Disaster-movie tropes are reinvigorated with an affecting sense of panic and horror. Anri Jojo’s tactile 1950s production design grounds the most extravagant set pieces.

The expanded choral narrative sacrifices some of Godzilla Minus One’s emotional clout, but an early scene in which children orphaned by the creature and the second World War stare at their child with her parents is as memorable as Ghidorah’s golden, fireballing three-headed incarnation.

Buy tickets for the biggest screen near you.

In cinemas from Thursday, November 5th