His sacrifice made me legit sad, the way he abandons himself to die to the Oxygen Destroyer to ensure no one can replicate it as he watches Godzilla is a great end to his character. He died a hero and that's a fact. Hi everyone! I was going to make these separate reviews but since I just recently watched the 1954 film a couple days after watching Shin I felt like I might as well bundle the two. Of course, spoilers ahead for two amazing films.
Just as quick background, I have not watched a Godzilla film since I was like 6-7 when I watched both Vs Mothra and Vs Mechagodzilla on TV (in this century dw I'm not like ancient or anything I'm just a dumb teen lol.) And my best friend, V, is a huge Godzilla fan and I decided to watch a couple films so I could truly understand everything, leading me to both Shin and the OG.
I was going to watch Minus One instead of 1954, but after a handful of videos, I decided to watch the original first and Minus one later. And I do not regret it a single bit.
Now, onto the reviews.
Wow. Just, wow. When my friend said Shin was good, he meant it. This is genuinely a top 10 film for me alongside 1954's Gojira. Now, do take my reviews with a grain of salt as I write these in as short of a time as I can after watching the film so I do tend to glaze a bit.
Now, I've never been that huge of a fan of the humans in Kaiju movies as I'd always just want to see big monsters fighting eachother, but this is probably the thing that changed it for me.
I really liked Yaguchi, I thought he was a cool protagonist and the politics actually was my favorite part of the film due to it being the theme of the film and its parallels to real events.
My favorite scene has to be the Persecution of the Masses part, the part where they're in all these meetings and discussing stuff while stage 2 Godzilla is wrecking shit all over the city, I think it stuck with me more than the other human focused scenes not just because of the importance of it but also from the music used.
I love the music in this film, Shiro Sagisu really made one of the best soundtracks I've heard. Persecution of the Masses is easily my favorite song in the entire OST, the first listen was a select few songs to have made me shed a tear in its greatness. Who Will Know is my 2nd favorite, not only is the clash of the female and male vocals brilliant but also the scene it's in is amazing too.
The scene of Shin absolutely destroying Tokyo with the song in the BG is probably one of my favorite movie scenes I've of recent. The build up of Shin casually destroying the cities and Japan before actually doing it is amazing, his other forms were just mindlessly roaming the city in pain until the stealth bombers attack forcing it to retaliate.
And it was a scene I'd been anticipating for a long time the entire film. I wanted to see the full potential of Shin and I was very happy. It is satisfying as hell, the atomic breath, the dorsal fin lasers, him unleashing a tsunami of fire upon Tokyo which I more recently found myself drawing similarities to the Tokyo attack in the 1954 film.
I am, astonished at how great this film was.
Time to watch, 5 hours for a 2 hour film since stuff came up in the middle of watching. 11/10 film, I would love to rewatch for the first time again.
I had actually held off this film for a while post watching Shin for a couple reasons. One, I was fresh off watching Shin Godzilla and wanted to take a day off from watching films and I (at the time of writing this I just finished the film almost an hour ago) had almost not watched. And another reason I mentioned above was that I was supposed to watch Minus One instead. My friend had told me to watch it after Shin and I knew it was a remake of the original so I decided to watch it first.
I'm not a fan of old black and white films, never watched them a whole bunch when I was younger and really this is the first black and white film I've watched in years. But this is a phenomenal film.
I think that in contrast to Shin's masterful use of its soundtrack, I liked the lack of a soundtrack for most of the 1954 film, I think it gave more to the atmosphere of the film.
Now, I won't say that I found myself terrified or haunted by the film but nonetheless this is a pretty film reflecting the use of nuclear weapons merely a few years prior. And I think it does it perfectly.
I wasn't a huge fan of the human characters besides the zoologist guy and the GOAT Serizawa, though I'll get to him later. The film wastes no time at all getting you introduced to the big G, first minute in the film you see a ship get attacked, 10 minutes later the guy is attacking the Ohto island and its people only to show up at a large mountain right after.
The looming threat of Godzilla is what I loved about both this and Shin, you know he's going to attack and its inevitable. There's nothing you can do to stop it. He will arrive. The usage of him is so good too, aside from the mountain scene where it's in the middle of the day, he is always an outline on the night sky and view, mainly him coming out of the water to attack more ships.
And when he is in full view, it's when he's attacking Tokyo out of anger for getting electrocuted, he is not destroying stuff for the sake of just being this huge dinosaur, he's doing it on purpose now.
Tokyo is getting destroyed, buildings are getting crushed to dust and rubble, trains are exploding into his legs, he's crumpling up giant huge metal towers like soda cans, not to mention his atomic breath is setting fire to the city and killing who remains. It's a haunting attack while the rest of the city can't do much other than sit and watch their country get destroyed by this huge lizard thing.
There's tanks and artillery bombing him but it does nothing, there is nothing to stop his wrath. It is complete anarchy and it's not until planes bomb him when he retreats.
On a side note, can I just talk about how cute the close up of Goji is?
< Like isn't he just a cutie patootie??? If he wasn't a 160 foot tall dino destroying my city I would be giving him hugs and pets.
Daisuke Serizawa is undeniably the best character in this film (outside of Goji himself ofc), the only man to kill Godzilla, the man who created the oxygen destroyer. The GOAT.
He is a man haunted by his discovery. I love his character and his arc (if you can call it that.) His realization that the Oxygen Destroyer, and by extension himself, is the only hope for humanity's survival is beautiful and poetic.
The way he comes about his realization too is amazing, he watches this radio playing a broadcast of a bunch of school students singing their prayers to be safe while flashes of the injured people hurt by Godzilla play on the screen. It gave me chills, and it's the only time I can say a film itself gave me chills on my skin. His sacrifice made me legit sad, the way he abandons himself to die to the Oxygen Destroyer to ensure no one can replicate it as he watches Godzilla is a great end to his character. He died a hero and that's a fact.
This film is amazing, it stood the test of time and is still a great kaiju movie, time to finish watching 3-4 hours for a film 1 hour and 36 minutes long. 11/10 would watch again.