Not long ago, Japanese film content seemed to be lagging behind its South Korean competition in the world: awards and attention went to Bong Joon-ho’s black comedy “Parasite” and the hit Netflix series “Squid gamenot the manga- or best-selling Japanese commercial films that were hits at home.
At the end of last year, Takashi Yamazaki’s “Godzilla Minus One“exploded onto screens — first in Japan and then in the United States — and the conversation around the venerable series (the first Godzilla film came out in 1954) suddenly changed.
Instead of the one-off quip about a man in a Godzilla suit trampling a toy-sized Tokyo, critics and fans abroad praised the emotional impact of the film’s drama, set in a devastated and demoralized Japan shortly after its defeat in World War II. Moreover, Yamazaki and his small VFX team were praised by their American counterparts for creating terrifyingly real monster action on what was, by Hollywood standards, a shoestring budget.
