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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9796218" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Yes. Look, we're treading close to politics now, and I've already been accused of rooting for the genocide of Japan (???), so I have to be careful what I write, but the rhetoric used in the film, and the general plot of the film rehabilitating the reputation of the Japanese military, as if they were victims of the Pacific War, has been part of Far Right politics in Japan for decades - part of a rhetoric of denialism about Japan's share of responsibility for much of what happened, and specifically denialism of the atrocities that were committed by the Japanese military, especially in China and Korea. WW2 revisionism, essentially.I enjoy history and follow world politics quite a bit, including those of Japan. So when I was watching the film, I was struck by how close its themes are to that controversial (and to my mind, toxic) revisionist position. When challenged on it, in this thread, it didn't take much googling to reveal that this issue was well understood in Japan, making the film quite controversial over there. Apparently this director has a history with the Japanese Far Right, and his films typically embrace their causes.Thus, my enjoyment of the film (and politics aside, as a Godzilla film, it is fabulous) was problematized by the awareness that it does, in fact, intentionally work to project the Far Right's preferred narrative on that period of history. It's not just a Godzilla movie, and was not intended to be just a Godzilla movie.</blockquote>

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