Shin Godzilla returns: Bureaucracy, behemoths, and a bloody big metaphor (monster movie trailer).

Godzilla, that beloved scaly metaphor for nuclear horror, ecological collapse, and now—joy of joys—governmental inefficiency, is back in Shin Godzilla, freshly remastered in eye-melting 4K. That’s right, the 2016 kaiju masterpiece that reimagined the Big G as a mutating nightmare-fish with a laser breath problem and an allergy to red tape is stomping back into cinemas. And just in time, too—our appetite for existential dread wrapped in city-wrecking monster action has only grown more refined since 2016.

Originally helmed by Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Hideaki Anno and tokusatsu guru Shinji Higuchi, Shin Godzilla was the franchise’s third reboot and Toho’s none-too-subtle love letter to catastrophe, competence, and creatures that glow ominously. The film swaps out cheesy monster battles and campy mad science for bureaucratic breakdowns, endless meetings, and a monster so radioactive it practically doubles as a walking reactor meltdown.

The new trailer for this HD re-release doesn’t so much tease as accuse—yes, you, viewer—of not appreciating just how brainy and bold Shin Godzilla really was. This isn’t just any old lizard-on-the-loose. No, this is Godzilla reimagined as a multi-phase evolutionary terror that crawls out of Tokyo Bay like an irradiated eel with imposter syndrome, only to grow legs, shoot lasers out of its spine, and eventually go all Dalí-on-a-bad-day in its final frozen form.

It’s less “run for your lives” and more “assemble a multi-agency task force, form a subcommittee, then maybe consider running.”

The genius of Shin Godzilla—and why it deserves this HD encore—is in its audacity. Not content with merely blowing stuff up, Anno and Higuchi made a monster movie where the monster is terrifying, yes—but so is the sluggishness of a system too petrified by protocol to act. Ministers panic. Civil servants flounder. And in one sublime moment of pure satire, Godzilla literally incinerates the Prime Minister’s helicopter mid-speech. Oops.

And just when it all gets too bleak, up steps Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yaguchi (Hiroki Hasegawa), forming the only group in history to defeat Godzilla using org charts, origami, and coagulant fluid. As metaphors for modern Japan go, it’s both absurd and weirdly poignant.

Visually, Shin Godzilla is a feast—especially in its 4K incarnation. The CG may lack the polish of Hollywood’s MonsterVerse, but what it lacks in gloss it makes up for in grotesque originality. Godzilla here isn’t a handsome beast—he’s a radioactive corpse dragged into sentience, all twitching tail and gaping jaw, like evolution had a nervous breakdown. Mansai Nomura’s motion-capture performance gives it a disturbing physicality, part Kabuki, part Cronenberg.

And then there’s the music: Shiro Sagisu’s score (with cheeky nods to Anno’s Evangelion and Akira Ifukube’s iconic themes) brings soaring choirs, pounding drums, and the exact sort of ominous urgency required when your capital is being flattened by a glow-in-the-dark iguana.

Here at SFcrowsnest, we’ve always appreciated a good monster movie—but we positively salute one that weaponises bureaucracy as both satire and plot device. Shin Godzilla isn’t just a reboot. It’s a reckoning. A commentary. A brilliant, bizarre, bureaucratic ballet with a radioactive beat.

So, if you missed it the first time round—or if you simply crave the glorious dread of watching Tokyo’s skyline reduced to rubble while civil servants squabble over procedure—don’t miss the 4K re-release of Shin Godzilla. Just be warned: by the time the final frame fades and those frozen humanoid Godzilla-spawn twitch into view… you’ll be wondering if we ever really defeated him. Or if we just paused the inevitable.

Because in Japan, the monsters don’t just come from the sea. They emerge from the meeting room next door.