by Eric Francisco
However much Takashi Yamazaki loves Godzilla, he might love his rival more. In 2023, the filmmaker wowed the world with Godzilla Minus One, an emotionally stirring disaster epic that told a deeply human story about sacrifice, self-forgiveness, and the power of found families, against the backdrop of postwar Japan. At the 96th Academy Awards, Godzilla Minus One clinched the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, which not only righteously recognized its handsome design but lent credence to its rep as a prestige-level event film.
But many years ago, its director was just a seven-year-old boy eager to imagine his hometown wrecked by Ghidorah, one of Godzilla’s most prolific enemies. “In the theaters, fifty-five years ago, was the first time I saw Ghidorah,” Yamazaki tells Esquire via English interpreter. It was at a revival screening of the 1964 film Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, when a school-aged Yamazaki saw a gold dragon with three heads stomp over Matsumoto City, where his family lived. But instead of glee, Yamazaki actually felt crushing ... disappointment.
“I was looking forward to seeing the utter destruction of my hometown by that kaiju,” Yamazaki says with a laugh. “They didn’t go as far as I wanted them to. So what I’ve done here is my childhood dream come true.”
On November 6, the King of the Monsters returned to the screen in Godzilla Minus Zero. Set in 1949, the sequel continues the story of Godzilla Minus One’s ex-kamikaze pilot Kōichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki). It’s been two years since Godzilla’s rise, and now he and his wife Noriko (Minami Hamabe) are raising their adopted daughter Akiko (Sae Nagatani). But when Ghidorah shows up, Kōichi regroups with his colleagues who’ve since formed the Large-Scale Disaster Response Bureau. While trying to stop Ghidorah’s terrible rampage, they cook up a desperate, if inevitable plan: Convince Godzilla to fight him.
Although Yamazaki spent the promotional cycle of Godzilla Minus One insisting that he had no plans for a sequel, the director had actually drummed up a story outline for Minus Zero. Yamazaki tells Esquire that he wanted to keep following the characters he introduced in his previous film to see how their traumatic circumstances could bring them closer together.
“In this series, Minus One and Minus Zero, Godzilla is a metaphor for war,” the filmmaker says. “What I wanted to do with this one is see how this family recovers and thrives after having suffered, and then see them survive another challenge. I wanted to see how they were going to deal with that. I love this family. I’m very attached to this family. I just wanted to see how they march forward.”
Below, Yamazaki reveals how surprised he was by the Western reception toward his first movie, why he included Ghidorah in the sequel, and whether a third movie is in the cards.
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