After months of uncertainty about a home release, Godzilla Minus One is on Netflix and VOD with no advance warning.
Advertisement
Released in 2023 to global box office success, the fate of the latest Japanese Godzilla film for home release in the U.S. has been a bit of a question mark. No announcements had been made about how or when it would show up. It was already out in Japan, but no companies were offering any hints in the U.S.
With only a few hours’ notice, the film was released to Netflix and digital purchase on June 1.
The new film opens in the waning days of World War II as kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) chooses to not complete his mission and lands his plane on Odo Island. Mere hours later, a giant lizard appears and kills everyone on the island but Shikishima and a mechanic named Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki). Shikishima returns to life in Tokyo to find his family dead, and feeling shame for having not completed his mission. He eventually finds a woman wandering the city (Minami Hamabe) with a baby that was not her own and makes a life with them… until Godzilla once again returns even larger than before.
The film is a definite return to the the themes of the original film released in 1954 about the dangers of nuclear weapons. It also deals with the concepts of what it means to be a soldier and how choosing life, no matter how dark things may seem, is always the best path.
It’s a far more mature Godzilla film than fans have seen in some time, and it is accompanied by spectacular special effects that ended up winning the Academy Award for Visual Effects.
The film is available now on Netflix and for purchase from various digital film stores.
