The Oscar-winning filmmaker discusses Godzilla as a reflection of society’s darkest fears, the seemingly endless cycles of war and revenge, how far he can push the franchise, and why he still wants to believe in humanity.
Three years and one Oscar after “Godzilla Minus One” stomped into the global conversation, writer-director Takashi Yamazaki isn’t just going bigger; he’s going darker. The Japanese filmmaker—who writes, directs, and oversees the VFX himself—returns with “Godzilla Minus Zero,” a sequel set two years after Godzilla last laid waste to Tokyo. It’s also the first Japanese production ever filmed for IMAX, a fitting canvas for a kaiju monster. Yet for all the scale on display, the monster in its title operates less like a character than a ghost: a looming presence that surfaces sparingly and makes every appearance count.
Seventy-two years after the original “Godzilla” stormed Tokyo, the premise remains simple: the war is over, a fragile peace has settled over Japan, and just as hope begins to take root, a new threat arrives. But where most sequels trade in escalation, “Minus Zero” trades in dread. It’s a graver film than its predecessor, a blockbuster that reaches into the darkest corners of Japan’s wartime history and carries the weight of that collective devastation in every frame.
Yamazaki, for his part, sees the Godzilla films as a lens through which a society examines itself, from the shadow of nuclear weapons to the quieter, harder-to-name dread humming beneath daily life. Those fears feed “Minus Zero’s” preoccupation with rage, revenge, and the way each breeds the next, raising a question the director answers with disarming candor: can the cycle ever actually be broken? Some days, he admits, believing in humanity is a tough sell. But some stubborn part of him always wants to.
With “Godzilla Minus Zero” now in theaters, The Playlist spoke with Yamazaki about the anxieties Godzilla embodies, the endless cycles of nationalistic rage and revenge, whether humanity can ever break them, how far he’s willing to push a franchise once aimed squarely at families, and why he refuses to separate filmmaking into different jobs.
Godzilla is, in many ways, a specter hanging over “Minus Zero,” an existential threat and a haunting memory of the destruction he caused in “Minus One.” He rarely appears, and when he does, it’s a one-two punch before he’s gone, almost as if to emphasize his power. Why did you choose such a long buildup and so few appearances for the title character?
The obvious metaphor of Godzilla is nuclear warheads and the idea of war itself. In the film, war is over. It’s peacetime in Japan. But there’s certainly this nervous energy and this fear that war might break out again and people might use nuclear weapons. That was true back then, and I think that’s true in a lot of ways now. Evoking that feeling kind of links it to the present. Godzilla movies have historically been almost a lens or reflection of our society, or the state of our world, throughout the eras. And in a weird way, I think it helps us understand what’s happening. So, this idea of anxiety or fear that’s hidden in our daily lives—Godzilla embodies that, and that’s why he exists as an idea, but perhaps not in the present or physically until the latter half, when he actually shows up in Japan.
Can you talk about the moment when we see Godzilla destroying New York City? There’s also the idea of a Hiroshima survivor dreaming of revenge through Godzilla, even though Godzilla himself destroyed his world.
I think war, at its core, is an infinite cycle between this unchecked rage and revenge that will trigger the next cycle of revenge, etc., etc. And if you look at human history, I think you could probably trace a bunch of different sequences and stretches of centuries that are informed by and a result of this cycle of revenge. So I wanted to express that idea through Godzilla itself, and just sort of this foolish nature of human arrogance, but also of hope.
It’s interesting that you describe it as an infinite cycle, because in “Minus Zero,” you choose to end that cycle, specifically through the Hiroshima survivor. Do you think humanity can actually break it, or are we doomed to repeat these cycles of war and revenge?
The serious side of me thinks it would be very hard to end this cycle, but there’s definitely a part of me that wants to believe in humanity, so I kind of go back and forth between the two. It wavers. When you speak to someone on an individual level, it’s very cordial, very kind. I think humans are all good-natured by heart. But when we start to have a government or mob or hive-mind mentality, that’s when a lot of extreme actions begin to happen that can’t be stopped. So, again, there are days when it’s hard for me to believe in humanity, but there is always this side of me that wants to.
What have you enjoyed most about directing these two films, and what’s been the biggest difference between them? I’m thinking specifically about the different stages of filmmaking—writing, production, editing, and visual effects.
I try not to think of each discipline as a separate job, so to speak. I think of it holistically as filmmaking, and I see the different processes within. I wear different hats at times, so I might be writing, or storyboarding, or sketching, or concepting. I get involved in everything. And, of course, different people get involved in different phases as well. But it feels to me more like one seamless task, and there’s a bigger flow. Each process also affects the other, so I can’t just isolate one and say, “I love this, and that’s all I want to do.” That would make things a lot easier. But I have a responsibility to always be thinking about what the final image is we’re putting on the screen and what we’re making audiences feel.
But I guess you could say I enjoy the process of rough storyboarding the most. That’s something I think only I could interpret, my rough storyboards. [Laughs] If I showed them to anyone else, they wouldn’t know what I was doing. That is a fun process. But I still don’t like to categorize or separate the skills of filmmaking.
This is a much darker, more unsettling Godzilla film than “Minus One,” particularly with its recreation of scenes from Hiroshima. Can you talk about confronting such a grave chapter of Japanese history within the framework of a giant action blockbuster?
Looking at Godzilla as IP and a piece of content, I was testing the limits of how far I could go with “Godzilla Minus One” and “Godzilla Minus Zero.” Kaiju movies have this consideration of being a family film. There was an era when they certainly were, and it was a genre that kids would watch. But, for me, I wanted to dig deeper and see how far the IP could go in some ways. I also thought it was very important to make that interpretation of Godzilla right now. So that is, perhaps, why it leans a bit darker.
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Coming off two Godzilla dream projects, what’s next for you?
As far as my next film, it’s going to be a much more fun movie, much lighter in that respect. That said, it still tackles a theme or an issue that I think we, as humanity, are carrying with us. But in a much more fairytale-esque approach. There are still some thought-provoking elements to it. It’s not going to be dark, but there are some serious moments that I think will give us reason to think.
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