“Godzilla Minus Zero” lit up the Tokyo International Film Festival on Sunday, drawing the most spirited crowds of the event with two sold-out screenings two days before its Japanese release. Director Takashi Yamazaki’s sequel to the Oscar-winning “Godzilla Minus One” played as the festival’s centerpiece. Stars Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe took the stage to introduce the shows. Kamiki told the audience he felt “excited” and “a little bit scared” as the opening approached and anticipation grew. Hamabe noted that the first film is beloved by fans around the world.
The pair arrived in Tokyo days after flying in from the film’s Los Angeles premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre, where Kamiki said “the energy was simply extraordinary.” Fans in Tokyo answered in kind, some wearing Godzilla outfits and badges, and chanted Yamazaki’s name during the event.
The film follows the Shikishima family two years after the events of “Minus One,” set in 1949 in a Japan still recovering from war. Kamiki returns as Koichi Shikishima and Hamabe as his wife, Noriko. A new threat strikes just as the country begins to rebuild. Kamiki told the crowd that viewers should imagine what those two years were like for the family, and said Godzilla endures because each film mirrors the era in which it is made. Hamabe described the monster as overwhelming and impossible for humans to defeat.
Yamazaki wrote, directed and supervised visual effects on the picture, as he did on “Minus One,” which won the Academy Award for best visual effects at the 96th Oscars. The sequel is the first Japanese feature shot for IMAX. It premiered at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 26.
Early social media reaction has been warm. Viewers praised the kaiju battles and the film’s focus on postwar trauma, though no full critical consensus has formed. Letterboxd users have given the film a 3.98 out of 5 average so far. Toho opens the film in Japan on Nov. 3. Distributors release it in North America on Nov. 6.
