With Godzilla’s 71st anniversary today, all eyes are on the future as Toho prepares for its next major movie, the Godzilla Minus One sequel Minus Zero. But the day also serves as an opportunity to celebrate the past—and celebrate it in style.
For the past few years, Godzilla’s anniversary has been marked with the Fest Godzilla short film series, directed by Kazuhiro Nakagawa, culminating in last year’s 70th anniversary short that saw Godzilla duke it out with Hedorah, Gigan, Jet Jaguar, and King Ghidorah.
The Fest shorts are all about celebrating the Godzilla franchise’s traditional filmmaking values as much as possible—practical FX and creature suits, miniature sets, and more pyrotechnics than you could shake a kaiju tail at. But while everyone thought it was over, Nakagawa returned to kick off a whole new sequel series. And speaking of pyrotechnics, he’s making Burning Godzilla the star.
This year’s short, Shinjuku Burning (watch it on YouTube here), features Godzilla going on a rampage in the titular Tokyo ward (including a very cute meta moment where he goes face-to-face with Kabukicho’s very own Godzilla hotel, complete with its statue of the King of All Kaiju perched on top of it). But instead of being pushed back, Godzilla transforms into his gloriously glowy form from the 1995 classic Godzilla vs. Destoroyah… just in time to face another monstrous threat.
© Toho
Aside from the emphasis on classic tokusatsu filming techniques, the short is in particular interesting for its attempt to do a one-shot-style extended sequence to depict Godzilla stomping through Shinjuku. It’s a very fun way of trying to “trick” the perspective of the audience as we snake through an actual location to miniature models and blend green screen work to make it all work.
Even as Godzilla looks to its future, it’s a very fun way to celebrate the kind of filmmaking that’s made it all possible for the last 71 years—and based on the ending, it looks like we’ll be getting a few more wonderful celebrations of it for the next few years.
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