Now symbolising more modern disasters, Godzilla is back with a vengeance and in an almost unrecognisable form – but with the same catastrophic intent.

An abandoned yacht in Tokyo Bay contains coded information about a mysterious sea creature. Suddenly, an unexplained accident occurs in which the Aqua Tunnel is flooded and collapses amid a massive roar. At an emergency meeting with the prime minister and other cabinet members, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi (Hiroki Hasegawa) advises that the incident may have been an attack by giant creatures living in the ocean. In the city of Kawasaki, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces once again come to battle an awakened and quickly evolving Godzilla.

The 29th film in the series and the first of the Reiwa era, Shin Godzilla draws inspiration from Japan’s 2011 earthquake, the subsequent tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear incident that followed. Ubiquitous use of title cards that reference convoluted processes serves to criticise the bureaucratic incompetence of government departments while typically praising the Self-Defense Forces – a group of science nerds, misfits and renegades who know how to deal with Godzilla without destroying all of Tokyo and its inhabitants.

“Thirty-one films and 63 years later, the monster has seldom looked better. The final shot will haunt your dreams.” – The Irish Times

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