Shin Gojira [Shin Godzilla] *** (2016, Hiroki Hasegawa, Satomi Ishihara, Yutaka Takenouchi) – Movie Review

Shin Gojira, aka Shin Godzilla, is the thoroughly entertaining 2016 Japanese live-action movie in which Gojira (Godzilla) is portrayed in motion capture by Mansai Nomura, though at the start the monster threatening Tokyo looks like a woollen-sock glove puppet and later it’s just CGI. This turns out well for the movie, giving it a Fifties retro feel and a comic book look. It’s ideal. Sometimes, though not by any means all the time, it looks just great.

The film concentrates on the various Japanese powers-that-be who are trying to react to the new threat. The usual bullets and rockets don’t do a thing except make Godzilla angry and spew out nuclear waste. The Japanese are mostly a bit slow to react, hoping against hope that the problem might just go away, ie Godzilla may go off when he came.

When it gets out of hand, i e not a woollen-sock glove puppet any more, as it is mutating, getting bigger and cannier and, well, just more monster-like, the Americans want to step in via controlling the UN (and the world!) and plan to drop an atomic bomb on old, or rather new, Gojira, and that would wipe out Tokyo too. The Japanese rather understandably don’t fancy a third atomic bomb dropped on them, and have 48 hours to come up with an alternative plan.

This they start to do, somehow with the help of the French, and set about a plan to put chemicals into Godzilla – if they can!

Co-directed by Hideaki Anno (creator of Evangelion) and Shinji Higuchi (director of Toho’s 2015 Attack on Titan live-action movies) and Shinji Higuchi, Shin Godzilla is the 29th Godzilla film produced by Toho and starts a new chapter in the 62-year history of the celebrated movie monster.

The film stars Hiroki Hasegawa and Satomi Ishihara – both also from the Attack on Titan live action movies – as well as Yutaka Takenouchi. It focuses mainly on the top brass who are in various meeting rooms plotting their nation’s survival from the threat. This proves a good route to go, cross-cutting with scenes of Godzilla rampaging and the TV news footage. It gives it a contemporary relevance and satirical edge. There is even space for a bit of muted humour and discreet romance, though not much. The anti-American stance, along with opposition to that nation’s gung-ho attitudes, is both understandable and now proves so up to date.

There’s a slight downside with all the reading you have to do with all the titles bombarding the screen telling you where you are, who is speaking, and at the same time the sub-titles are moving along swiftly, sometimes having to jump even in mid-flight to the top of the screen, because the bottom is filled with Japanese titles and English translations. You can’t read it all. It’s OK though. It doesn’t really matter so much who’s talking of where? Just read the dialogue and let your peripheral vision take it the rest.

This starts the story as though there has never been a Godzilla movie, which is another good route to go, and of course ends up, after an entirely satisfying climax, with the set-up for Shin Gojira 2. If it’s as good as this one, bring it on! Gojira again proves an excellent, enduring, all-time great monster, capable of mutating movie-wise too. It’s good that the Japanese have reclaimed their monster. It is best to keep it away from the Americans.

Opening on 29 July 2016, Shin Godzilla was a big hit in Japan with a box office of ¥ 845,675,500 and an audience of 564,332 during its first three days. It grossed ¥ 8,200 million at the Japanese box office. It was released in North American cinemas on 11 October 2016 and grossed $1,918,403 in the US and Canada.

The title of Shin Gojira is chosen to convey ‘new’, ‘true’ and ‘god’.

Shin Godzilla is from National Amusements, who are the umbrella company behind Anime Ltd.

It is released in the UK on 10 August 2017 by Altitude Film Entertainment after appearing at FrightFest Glasgow on 24 February 2017.

Godzilla [Gojira] *** (1954, Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirata, Akira Takarada, Haruo Nakajima) – So Bad It’s Good Movie 4

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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