Photo/Illutration Takashi Yamazaki, director of “Godzilla Minus One,” with the trophy for the Academy Award for Visual Effects at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on March 12 (Tatsuya Shimada)

Director Takashi Yamazaki hopes his “Godzilla Minus One” winning an Oscar will bring about monstrous reverberations, opening new horizons for his career as well as for the Japanese movie industry.

“The staff and cast have propelled the film to success, and we have come this far thanks to Godzilla,” Yamazaki told a news conference at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on March 12 on his return from the awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California.

“I will challenge myself in many ways by taking this as a starting point, not a goal.”

The movie, in which a suicide attack survivor takes on a rampaging Godzilla in Tokyo immediately after World War II, brought home the Academy Award for Visual Effects, a first for an Asian film.

Yamazaki described the visual effects prize as “the holy of holies for Hollywood” because it is selected from among big-budget productions laden with elaborate technologies.

The director thanked Hollywood for its “big heart” in opening the door to that gem.

He also said he felt the U.S. movie industry’s unwavering confidence even if Japanese claimed the Oscar and its warmth as ceremony attendees “kindly listened to my poor English speech.”

Asked what factors he believes led to the Oscar, Yamazaki said voting members might have been intrigued by the movie’s exceptionally low budget and few visual effects staff members.

He also said they might also have appreciated the sense of fear evoked by the approaching Godzilla because the contribution of visual effects to the storyline is important for the prize.

When asked if he thinks Japanese visual effects have reached a world-class level, Yamazaki immediately replied, “Not at all.”

“My heart sank when I watched the other nominees in earnest,” he said. “I felt we are not quite there yet. We were a lucky punch. We won the prize thanks to a number of factors combined."

But he added, “We have been able to produce results, and we will work harder by using this as a bridgehead.”

“Godzilla Minus One” had raked in more than $100 million (14.73 billion yen) worldwide at the box office as of January.

It is also a record-breaking hit in North America as a Japanese film.

Yamazaki said the movie with an all-Japanese cast has “done reasonably well at the box office” in the United States even though it only comes with English subtitles.

“I think the way Japanese films are made will change in the future, such as production costs becoming more abundant and filmmakers aiming to achieve worldwide releases,” he said.

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