Ignore the giant, alien-looking kaiju on the film's posters; Shin Gojira (known in English as Godzilla Resurgence), a remake of the iconic 1954 film, is very much a relatively grounded political drama, trading in the spectacular giant-monster battles we've grown to expect of modern kaiju films for a more deliberate exploration of real-world politics, where indecision, unilateral national agendas and complicated bureaucratic protocols kill more innocent civilians than the titular kaiju ever could on its own.
There really is nothing explicably new in Shin Gojira in terms of its story. Mysterious eruptions occur, the government writes it off as some freak natural accident, before being proven wrong when a giant eel-like Godzilla pup awkwardly scuffles its way out of Tokyo Bay right into the bustling streets of Japan's capital city. Government officials gather experts from various fields to figure out how to fight the monster, as conventional military weaponry has been proven utterly ineffective against it. Viewed from afar, Shin Gojira pretty much follows the same formula as every kaiju film under the sun has before it.
What sets Shin Gojira apart as its own beast (heh), however, is its heavy focus on the real-world politics involved in such situations of large-scale disaster. Unlike its more modern incarnations, where every action by the government or military seems to just happen the second someone utters it on-screen, Shin Gojira shows us all the bureaucratic red tape one must navigate before any such actions can be carried out in real life. Government ministers agonise over the right protocol and law amendments needed to mobilise the Japanese Self-Defense Force (their military force), dogged by indecision stemming from the unprecedented nature of their predicament and the implications for their career's future. Foreign governments pursue their own agendas in the guise of offers of aid. Nothing is ever magically procured or offered for free, even when they are crucial for stopping the rampaging, near-200m-tall nuclear monstrosity. Everyone has something to gain, and they're not going to stop pursuing it just because a kaiju stomped its way through half of Tokyo.
The fact that the real-world politics involved seem so plausible is actually one of the most interesting aspects of the film. When America offers to aid Japan in the elimination of Godzilla, they do so because of the discovery of special elements within the monster's body capable of producing massive amounts of energy. This prompts the US's prime rivals, Russia and China, to use their powers as members of the UN Security Council to force both America and Japan into joining an international anti-Godzilla task force, which in effect keeps the spoils from the Godzilla fight out of American hands. That all these events make sense in the context of real world politics makes the film an interesting "what if..." scenario about how our governments would function in actual cases of extreme disasters.
Shin Gojira is very much a symbolic representation of any type of large-scale disaster, much like how the original 1954 kaiju stood for the unnatural destruction caused by atomic bombs. For Shin Gojira, the disaster being alluded to is the 2011 "Triple Disaster", when the country was battered by a devastating tsunami caused by a severe deep-sea tremor. The tsunami also caused the near-meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear powerplant, known to be the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1968.
Political intrigue aside, however, Shin Gojira is definitely not a film that will appeal to thrill-chasers expecting the mass-scale destruction and battles that tend to accompany kaiju films. Sure, Shin Gojira has its fair share of both, but much of the film is relegated to politicians and scientists sitting around a table discussing things, meaning people who watch the original Japanese soundtrack will be reading a light-novel's worth of subtitles. There are no heart-thumping set pieces, nor is there a super-talented, plot-armoured main protagonist to save the day. All the action is shown in a detached, almost uninterested manner, through wide, all-encompassing shots rather than cool, dramatic close-ups or slow-motion sequences.
This also applies to scenes showing the titular monster, which I am actually OK with, as the new Godzilla looks very much like a cross between a burning piece of charcoal and a polio-afflicted T-Rex. While this design harkens back to the original man-in-a-rubber-suit look of the 1954 original, it also makes it a little challenging to take the monster seriously, even as we see it burn an entire Tokyo district with its fiery breath, or shoot stealth bombers out of the sky with laser beams from its back spikes.
In conclusion, Shin Gojira is very much a political drama as opposed to the thrilling disaster porn we have come to expect of moderrn kaiju films. Whether this is good or bad is entirely up to the viewer, though anyone interested to see a realistic simulation of how real-world bureaucracy would fare against a kaiju attack will definitely find much to think about in this remake.
