If the embed above misbehaves, the film’s trailer is also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0YhiqOPFg
Ginza has been flattened by Godzilla so many times that the district’s shopkeepers must reach for their insurance documents every time Toho announces a new film. Takashi Yamazaki himself reduced it to cinders in Godzilla Minus One. So there was something rather cheeky about holding the Japan premiere of Godzilla Minus Zero there on Monday, and about where the red carpet went: an 83-metre run along the elevated KK Line, the old expressway that snakes over Ginza and Yurakucho, laid out directly above Shin-Sukiyabashi. The road opened in 1966, closed to traffic in April 2025 and is being turned into an elevated public walkway, and Japan’s Daily Sports reports this was the first time a Japanese film had staged a red carpet up there. The cast strolled along it to the Godzilla theme, mingling with fans, over streets the big fellow has demolished more often than most councils have resurfaced them.
Then there were the shoes. Yamazaki turned up in what the Japanese press promptly dubbed “Ghidorah shoes”, the heels of which are fashioned into King Ghidorah. The three-headed dragon’s presence in the film was confirmed at the world premiere at the New York Film Festival in September, which means that, strictly speaking, Ghidorah’s grand Japanese unveiling took place on the back of the director’s feet. For a filmmaker whose new picture is the first Godzilla film ever to be rated R in the United States, walking all over his own villain is a bold choice. One hopes it is not a spoiler for the third act.
Yamazaki told the crowd that staging the event in Ginza meant a great deal, and that while films like this usually come with limits on what can be shown, he had been allowed to push things a long way. This, he said, is the Godzilla he wanted to make. Ryunosuke Kamiki, back as Koichi Shikishima, said the evening felt like being in a dream, called the spot sacred ground, and teased that the director had now graduated to being a Takashi of the world stage, which earned him a swift instruction to knock it off. Kamiki also admitted that after seeing the finished film he rang Yamazaki and talked at him for an hour, which is either the highest compliment an actor can pay or a very good reason to screen your calls.
The rest of the cast sounded equally shell-shocked. Minami Hamabe, returning as Noriko, said she had made some lovely memories. Masami Nagasawa, who joins as a gifted weather forecaster and is back in the franchise for the first time in 22 years (she was one of the Shobijin, Mothra’s tiny twin priestesses, in 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars), said the film hit her so hard she could not get up from her seat straight away. Hidetaka Yoshioka, returning as the engineer Noda, went further still, saying he could not eat for two and a half days afterwards. Coming from the cast, that is either a ringing endorsement or a strong hint to skip the nachos.
Godzilla Minus Zero opens in Japan on 3 November, Godzilla’s birthday, and arrives in UK and US cinemas on 6 November, with GKIDS handling North America. Yamazaki has told the story of how, as a schoolboy, he desperately wanted to see King Ghidorah on the big screen and had to strike a deal with his parents to get there. Half a century later, he has put the monster in his film and on his feet. That is what happens when nobody tells a kaiju fan to stop.
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