Godzilla Minus Zero Director Takashi Yamazaki Explains the Household Inspiration for the Film’s Big, Brutal Climax

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Godzilla Minus Zero.

Godzilla Minus Zero has the most viscerally violent kaiju battle since Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla. I’d say it easily surpasses that, even with Godzilla’s atomic-heat-ray-down-the-throat finishing move against the bug-like MUTO in Edwards’ movie that rebooted Toho’s franchise after 10 dormant years. In Godzilla Minus Zero, the inevitable showdown between Godzilla and the terrifying three-headed King Ghidorah is a bloody no-holds-barred melee from the get-go, with the two immediately going for each others’ jugular (or whatever the equivalent anatomy is of unknowable monsters from the sea and space). It’s not outlandish to call their fight the most intense monster-on-monster violence portrayed in the franchise’s history. Like Ken Watanabe’s character says in Edwards’ Godzilla, “Let them fight.”

How did writer/director Takashi Yamazaki think about staging this huge, all-out, flesh-ripping, head chopping, arm-tearing kaiju brawl?

“So, I have two cats,” Yamazaki told IGN. “And for the most part, they're very nice and playful with each other, but on a rare occasion I think there's like — I don't know if they're crossing the line between play and actual fighting. I see two creatures fighting each other and I tend to think about my cats when that happens.”

Incredible. Anyone with multiple cats knows exactly what Yamazaki is talking about, and the inspiration is hard to unsee. Ghidorah, even from his first scene of destruction, comes off as somewhat cat-like as he peeks at fleeing people in between buildings, like a cat hunting, before razing the city with his terrifying zaps of thunder breath. Then when he’s done, he goes and curls up to take a long nap in a kaiju-sized bed, also known as a mountain crater.

Like so many of the devastating human elements of Godzilla Minus Zero, the battle scene between Godzilla and Ghidorah takes full advantage of its R rating, the first for a Godzilla film. (Another first: It’s the first time a Japanese film was shot for IMAX.) Making the climax as gory and exciting as it is started all the way back at the script phrase.

“When writing the screenplay for Godzilla Minus Zero, I remember writing, ‘This is a fight to the death.’ There was a duel between two of them and a fight to the death means one will inevitably die,” Yamazaki said. “Thinking about these two beasts that are equipped with the ability to kill each other and if they really go at it, what will happen? Even in nature, you start ripping parts of flesh off and then start to weaken your opponent to the point where you can deliver the finishing blow. So it felt natural that kaiju would also behave similarly in a fight to the death.

“Thinking about this idea that one will inevitably die, I think it's impossible not to think about the sort of chaos that would ensue. But at the same time, I think it's sort of painful and sad to watch because I look at Godzilla and it almost feels like a cat being bullied in a way. And I think since having two cats and watching them so often, I've had this sickness where anything fighting looks like two cats fighting to me.”

Godzilla Minus Zero opens in U.S. theaters on November 6. We liked its "satisfying and visually amazing scenes of giant-monster destruction" in our review. For more Godzilla, read about how Yamazaki told us that focusing on trying to one-up the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One in this sequel was a surefire way to “risk diluting what makes the movie great in the first place.” The writer/director is still on the fence about turning his Godzilla movies into a trilogy.

Image credit: Toho