Shin Godzilla (シン・ゴジラ, Shin Gojira) is a 2016 Japanese kaiju film directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi, with a screenplay by Anno and visual effects by Higuchi. Produced by Toho Pictures and Cine Bazar and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd., it is the 31st film in the Godzilla franchise, the 29th film produced by Toho, Toho's third reboot of the franchise, and the first film in the franchise's Reiwa era. It is also the first film in Anno's Shin Japan Heroes Universe, followed by Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021), Shin Ultraman (2022), and Shin Kamen Rider (2023). The film stars Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, and Satomi Ishihara. In the film, politicians struggle with bureaucratic red tape in order to deal with the sudden appearance of a giant monster that evolves whenever it is attacked.
In December 2014, Toho announced plans for a new domestic Godzilla film. Anno and Higuchi were announced as the directors in March 2015. Principal photography began in September 2015 and ended in October 2015. Inspiration for the film was drawn from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
Shin Godzilla was theatrically released on July 29, 2016, to acclaim from Japanese critics and mixed reviews from Western critics. The film grossed $78 million worldwide and was the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film of 2016 and became the highest-grossing Japanese-produced Godzilla film in the franchise. It received 11 Japan Academy Prize nominations and won seven, including Picture of the Year and Director of the Year.
Plot[]
When the Japan Coast Guard investigates an abandoned yacht in Tokyo Bay, their boat is destroyed and the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line is flooded. After seeing a viral video of the incident, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi believes it was caused by a living creature, which is confirmed as news reports reveal its tail emerging from the ocean. Shortly thereafter, the creature moves inland, crawling through the Kamata district of Tokyo, leaving a path of death and destruction during an inadequate evacuation. The creature quickly evolves into a bipedal form, but overheats and returns to the sea.
The government officials focus on military strategy and civilian safety; Yaguchi is put in charge of a task force researching the creature. With high radiation readings from the creature's path, they realize that it is energized by nuclear fission. The U.S. sends a special envoy, Kayoco Anne Patterson, who reveals that Goro Maki, a disgraced, anti-nuclear zoology professor, studied mutations caused by radioactive contamination, predicting the appearance of the creature. Maki was disbelieved by both American and Japanese scientific circles. The U.S. then prevented him from making his conclusions public. The abandoned yacht in Tokyo Bay was Maki's, who left his research notes, jumbled into a code, on the boat before disappearing.
The creature - named "Godzilla" after Maki's research - reappears in its fourth form, twice its original size, making landfall near Kamakura. The Japan Self-Defense Forces mobilize, but prove ineffective as Godzilla breaks through their defenses into Tokyo. The U.S. intervenes with a massively-destructive air strike plan, prompting the evacuation of civilians and government personnel. Godzilla is wounded with MOP "bunker-buster" bombs, but responds with destructive atomic rays fired from its mouth and dorsal plates, destroying the helicopter carrying the prime minister along with top government officials and incinerating large swaths of Tokyo. Depleting its energy, Godzilla enters a dormant state and becomes immobile.
Yaguchi's team discovers that Godzilla's plates and blood work as a cooling system, theorizing that they could use a coagulating agent to freeze it. Analyzing tissue samples, it's discovered Godzilla is an ever-evolving creature, able to reproduce asexually. The United Nations, aware of this, informs Japan that thermonuclear weapons will be used against Godzilla should the Japanese fail to subdue it in a few days; evacuations are ordered in multiple prefectures in preparation. Unwilling to see nuclear weapons detonated in Japan again, Patterson uses her political connections to buy time for Yaguchi's team, in whom the interim government has little faith.
Yaguchi's team manages to decipher Goro Maki's encoded research using origami. They adjust their plan and procure the means to conduct their deep freeze plan with international support. Hours before the planned nuclear attack, Japan enacts the deep freeze plan. Godzilla is provoked into expending its atomic breath and energy against drones. The team then detonates nearby buildings and send trains toward Godzilla's feet, subduing it, and allowing tankers full of coagulant to inject it into Godzilla's mouth. Many are killed, but Godzilla is frozen solid.
In the aftermath, the Godzilla fallout is discovered to have a very short half-life and that Tokyo can soon be reconstructed. The international community agrees to cancel the nuclear attack on condition that, in the event of Godzilla's reawakening, an immediate thermonuclear strike will be executed. On Godzilla's tail, humanoid creatures appear frozen in the process of emerging.