Godzilla, the nightmarish radiation spewing monster born out of nuclear weapons, has stomped through many movies, including several Hollywood remakes.
Takashi Yamazaki, the director behind the latest Godzilla movie, set for U.S. theatrical release later this year, was determined to bring out what he believes is the essentially Japanese spirituality that characterizes the 1954 original.
In that classic, directed by Ishiro Honda, a man sweated inside a rubber suit and trampled over cityscape miniatures to tell the story of a prehistoric creature mistakenly brought to life by radiation from nuclear testing in the Pacific. The monster in “Godzilla Minus One” is all computer graphics
The world has been recently thrust into a period of uncertainty, with the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic. It was a mood that fit his supernatural “very Japanese” Godzilla, Yamazaki said at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where Godzilla Minus One is the closing film. It opens in Japanese theatres on Friday (Nov 3).
Yamazaki, who has worked with famed auteur Juzo Itami, has won Japan’s equivalent of an Oscar for Always – Sunset On Third Street, a heartwarming family drama set in the 1950s, and The Eternal Zero, about Japanese fighter pilots.
