Movie fans in the UK have been able to enjoy the fact that Netflix is slowly amassing more of the Oscar-nominated films from this year's awards; beyond the ones it produced itself, Past Lives joined recently and The Boy and the Heron is on its way. And Netflix has just added another movie which won at the 2024 ceremony.
This movie is Godzilla Minus Zero, a Japanese Godzilla movie that came out at the tail end of 2023 and won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. It's got nothing to do with the recent Monsterverse movies like Godzilla x Kong, and is a stand-alone story.
Godzilla Minus Zero is a tale which focuses on human characters, rather than the titular monster; it's about a kamikaze survivor Kōichi who flees from his task at the end of World War Two and witnesses Godzilla attack a small island. Years later, after suffering from survivors' guilt and starting a surrogate family, Kōichi has to learn that he can't run from all his battles when Godzilla finally attacks Japan.
If you've found the American Godzilla blockbusters a bit too focused on spectacle over drama and characters, Godzilla Minus Zero might be a great antidote. Not only did the movie win an Oscar but it garnered loads of other accolades and also became the most successful Godzilla film made in the fictional creature's native country of Japan. And it still does have the spectacle and action, hence the award.
However, if you sit down to watch it on Netflix, you might not get the full experience, and I'd recommend you change one particular feature before you stream the movie.
By default, for users in the UK, Netflix presents international movies in a "dubbed" format; that means the native dialogue is replaced by English or American actors reading the translated lines. It's an alternative to subtitles, wherein you hear the original actors' lines and read the translation at the bottom of the screen.
The "subs" vs"'dubs" debate has long been raging for fans of foreign movies and TV shows, and Netflix's decision to offer the former by default hasn't pleased everyone. Dubs fans like how accessible it makes content but detractors prefer the nuance and meanings of the original creators' work (dubs are often done by third-party companies and actors). Plus, oftentimes dubs change the exact wording of a sentence to make it sound more appropriate for local audiences, which can easily strip meaning from dialogue.
Godzilla Minus Zero doesn't have bad dubbing by any means, but given that the movie was beloved for its performances and dialogue, it feels inappropriate to opt for dubs over subs.
It's no accident that Toho, the studio that made the movie, opted to release it in Japanese in English-speaking countries, thereby making the firm statement that it preferred subtitles over dubbing for its movies. The new dubs were done for the movie's release on Netflix, a fact confirmed in the credits, so it's unlikely that Toho had anything to do with them.
And as someone who's watched the movie both ways, I can say that the subtitles really do let you enjoy the nuance of dialogue while appreciating the original actors' performances. So you should go into your Netflix settings to change your audio options when you're watching it.
The method to do this varies by your device, but if you're on PC it's simple; when the video is playing mouse over the option at the bottom-right that looks like a speech bubble, change audio to 'Japanese [Original]' and change subtitles to 'English [CC]'.
