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FreeRide looks at the American Dubbed PRINCESS MONONOKE (aka Mononoke Hime)
Hey folks Harry here, with FreeRide's look at Princess Mononoke. I don't really have to give much of an intro to this film, many of you are well familiar with the project and have been looking forward to seeing it on American Screens for over a year now. So... I'll just hand ya over to FreeRide...
PRINCESS MONONOKE: Dueling Hatred
A FreeRide (freeride_n@yahoo.com)review
ANIMEFANTASTIQUE magazine posed the question, "Is this (PRINCESS MONONOKE)
the greatest animated film ever made?" We can argue until the end of time
over which movie is "the greatest." In the end, does it really matter?
I can name three films that I consider to be classic animated films:
PINNOCHIO, IRON GIANT, and I'll throw in Ralph Bakshi's WIZARDS. All three
of those films are classic for a wide spectrum of reasons.
What dictates a classic film? It has to be timeless (doesn't show any
signs of age), it has to be flawless in form, and it has to be
understandable to all age groups. You can tell from first viewing whether
a movie is destined to be a classic, or one that will be forgotten by this
time next month. Miyazaki has created a film that is about ten years
ahead of its time(in American standards). It deals with issues that we as
Americans are not yet able to understand. Yes, PRINCESS MONONOKE will be
remembered. The question is; is America ready for PRINCESS MONONOKE?
Riding atop his gazelle, Ashitaka (Billy Crudup) makes his heroic entrance.
He is a warrior prince: patient, compassionate, and strong. "Something's
coming," He shouts. From high atop an observation deck, we see a creature
emerges from the forest. A creature covered in plasma (nasty like maggots)
with arms reaching out; killing all that is living.
We are quickly thrust into another battle only someone like Akira Kurosawa
would have choreographed. Ashitaka runs across a band of Samurai
barbarians who are attacking a farming village. From the looks of things,
it's a massacre. Miyazaki, like Kurosawa, has an intense eye for detail.
The designs used for costumes and weapons are authentic, and add to the
realism of the film. I can understand why Disney was interested in
Miyazaki's work. He is capable of designing films that are rich with
texture, and a story filled with pathos.
Metamorphosis has always been a strong theme in Japanese Animation. Here,
it is used to show demonic control. Tapping into epic themes of fantasy,
Ashitaka deals a deadly blow to the demon like Bard of Dale extinguishing
the Dragon Smaug. Ashitaka was not left unharmed. He was touched by the
demon - condemned by the spirits to be consumed until death. Forced to cut
his own hair, Ashitaka is banished from his home. He must search for a
cure, or die trying. The only clue is in the form of a single iron pellet
found in the belly of the demon's physical form (a giant wild boar). His
travels takes him west where he is introduced to San, the Princess
Mononoke, and Lady Eboshi, the founder of Iron Town.
Understanding the character's relationships is important to understanding
the film. Both San (Claire Danes), and Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver) are
driven by their hatred for each other. Lady Eboshi is a mystery. We know
she's compassionate for the damned, and former prostitutes. It is argued
that she was once a prostitute herself, but had bought her own freedom.
She has her reasons for acting the way she does. She chose to keep her
secrets hidden. Does that make her a bad person? No, it just makes her
more complex. An example of a good "villain." Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.
Know what I mean?
San is the polar opposite to Lady Eboshi. San can be compared to Princess
Yukihime of Kurosawa's HIDDEN FORTRESS fame. Unlike Princess Yukihime, San
is willing to fight for what she thinks is right. She doesn't see herself
as a human, but rather a wolf; raised by wolves. She knows Lady Eboshi is
the enemy, and that's her focus for revenge.
PRINCESS MONONOKE is what Tarzan could have been. With PRINCESS MONONOKE,
you aren't forced to sit though songs made to sell children sing- along
CD's, or theme park rides, or other lousy marketing gimmicks. PRINCESS
MONONOKE is pure storytelling, simply told, and epic in form.
Claire Danes does a fine job voicing San. She was cast to fit the persona
of a princess: young, passionate, and headstrong. Minnie Driver is perfect
for the role of Lady Eboshi: cold, calculating, and European (fitting for a
Westerner). There needs to be special mention given to Billy Crudup for
doing the voice of Ashitaka. He's the prime example of perfect voice
casting. Otoki needed to be a strong voice, and Jada Pinkett fits the
bill. She is well cast. Jig Boh (Billy Bob Thornton) is tolerable at
best. Thornton's voice does fit with the character, but there are times
when the voice contradicts the actions of Jig Boh. Gillian Anderson does a
fine job doing the haunted voice of the San's mother Moro.
Is America ready for PRINCESS MONONOKE? The next few months are crucial
for PRINCESS MONONOKE's success. Proper marketing in magazines, and a good
trailer is all you need. Miramax has done everything right so far. We
(the Internet) need to start passing the word around. PRINCESS MONONOKE
made $200,000,000 (theater and rental) so far. Are we, as an audience,
willing to see an animated film rich with Japanese culture? It's in our
best interest to be interested. Educate the audience, and they will be
willing to accept that which is foreign (generally speaking).
PRINCESS MONONOKE is NOT a kid's movie. There is graphic violence. Yet,
it does have strong moral message. Parents should see the movie before, or
with their kids in-order to explain what the images mean. A big request,
but one that needed to be said. It's a good film, and left in the theaters
to gain it's own audience, the film will make a profit. A movie like
PRINCESS MONONOKE is a long-term investment.
The following links are made possible by the untouchable greatness of
Nausicaa.Net (http://www.Nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mh/) (everything you need to
know about PRINCESS MONONOKE). The trailers are for the Japanese release
of MONONOKE HIME, and will give you a good idea of what the movie looks,
and feels like.
Trailer 1:
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/file-archive/movies/MononokeHime/trailer1.mov
Trailer 2:
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/file-archive/movies/MononokeHime/trailer2.mov
Trailer 3:
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/file-archive/movies/MononokeHime/trailer3.mov
Trailer 4:
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/file-archive/movies/MononokeHime/trailer4.mov
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I can't wait to see the reactions on the faces of American parents after they foolishly drag their children to see THIS one. The protests in the streets alone will be the best publicity this movie can get!
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Wizards a classic? Um, well you're entitled to your opinion, but I didn't like that one at all. Actually, I don't like much of anything Bakshi has done with animation, but that's me. For Mononoke, I hope it is accepted. The Prince of Egypt was beautiful, but it wasn't accepted as a non-kid movie. The reviewers didn't read Harry's review because they were stumped as to why the Moses story had to be animated. That was Entertainment Weekly, dumbest people in the business, and from the EW advance look, they compared the "piss" line in Mononoke to Cartman's language. Show's what they think of non-kid animation. Even the Iron Giant was put down by that bitch reviewer in the Washington Post--she didn't get the movie at all. Basically, even most critics can't pull their heads out of their asses to admire animation, and they're usually the first to pull the elitist when they see unappreciated greatness. I can only hope you're right about the marketing actually helping this film. But remember, this is Disney.
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When I was but a wee bairn, I used to love to watch the Japanese cartoons like Voltron, and that other one about the wandering boy and his giant dog, but it really annoyed me how the characters ALWAYS spoke like, 3000 words a minute without stopping for breath, and the mouth movements were created by alternating big circle, little circle, big circle, little circle to create the appearance of motion. Also, the sound effects were always those strange metallic "scraping" sounds. (That's the best I can describe it, either ya know what I'm talking about or ya don't.) If PM is in that style of animation, I don't think I could handle feature length film time demands. I may have to pass on this one.
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This is like comparing the cinematography of "Gone With the Wind" to the cinematography of your Super-8mm home movies. Yes, both "Voltron" and "Princess Mononoke" come from Japan. However, one was made for TV in the '70s for about five bucks an episode, and the other was made in the '90s as a studio film by professional artists. Don't be so unbelievably stupid.
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I think maybe y'all are right, if we want to prevent another IG box office massacre (damn you Warner marketing! Damn you to hell!) We need to start talking this one up NOW, and educating people as to what to expect. Disney knows how to market a film, but I suspect the mainstream reviews will not be kind (places like ScreenIt in particular will SAVAGE the film for its violence and themes.) And protests will NOT help the film at all- they certainly didn't do much for Last Temptation of Christ, now did they? The curiosity factor is more than outweighed in the general populace by the sheep mentality. We must be stalwart, and vigilant. Never again must classic animation fail in theaters- otherwise we will be condemned to a purgatory of Disney Formula pablum.
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Whoa, there big fella! If ya read my blurb, you'll see that the information I'm looking for is this: Is it quality animation or not? I tried to see the trailers at the sites located above and to my chagrin, I got an error page. Thanks for answering my question, though,... I guess.
PS. I hope you got a really great "hehehe, I'm so superior" high when you clicked the post button. -
Try the links to the trailers again. The ones on the review are correct so you probably caught them during a downtime or mistyped the url. If all you've seen of anime is Voltron, you're in for a pleasant surprise.
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Finally Mononoke Hime gets a release!
By jiminy, I've been waiting for this for two years!
It came out in Japan back in 97 and was one of the (if not the) most successful films of the year. I heard that Disney bought the rights to the Miyazaki stuff, but never thought it would take so long to get it dubbed.
To the guy that worried about the animation - you should have no worries about the quality of this movie; it's light-years ahead of Disney (and doesn't have to rely on digital technology to be so).
So when's it coming out in the UK, Harry? -
>> What dictates a classic film? It has to be timeless (doesn't show any signs of age), it has to be flawless in form, and it has to be understandable to all age groups. << ...So by these criteria, the following films are not classics: Eisenstein's "Potemkin," Chaplin's "Modern Times," Fellini's "8 1/2" and "La Dolce Vita," Hawks's "Red River" and "The Big Sleep" and "His Girl Friday," Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" and "Seventh Seal," Lang's "Metropolis," Kurosawa's "Rashomon," Keaton's "Sherlock Jr," Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," Ford's "Stagecoach" and "The Searchers," the original versions of "Forbidden Planet" and "Cat People," Olivier's adaptation of "Hamlet" -- or, perhaps, they are indeed classics, and it's just that the definition is stupid. You choose.
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200 million total earnings? Wow... quite impressive. Maybe Warner should try to send IG to Japan, and try to make their money back on it...
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I saw "Momonoke Hime" on laser disk and frankly speaking I wasn't at all impressed. To me it seemed "Momonoke Hime" is just a nausicaa story set in a different setting, the problem being that it lacked any of the charm that made Nausicaa likable. The fact that the theme of the story was pretty much the same as nausicaa and that even similar plot devices were used killed any appreciation for originality or creativity for me. (Big hunkering bio-monster coming to kill everything. Please~~, once is quite enough.) I think Disney should probably save their money and let this one go quietly which I'm sure they will do for let say their own reasons.
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I will state this: Mononoke Hime addresses many of the same themes as Nausicaa. In fact, many people (including myself) see Mononoke Hime as a "thematic" sequel to Nausicaa (emphasis on the thematic part).
Where Mononoke Hime differs from Nausicaa (and excels for that matter) is the film is a much more complex and mature film. Unlike Nausicaa, there is no happy ending to the story. The Valley is not saved. The bad guys do not leave. The ending is ambigious because Miyazaki has come to realize that there is not right answer to the problem of man vs. nature.
Nausicaa was made in 1984 after Miyazaki had been working on the Nausicaa mangas. His view of the theme of man vs. nature was much more black and white. As you can tell by the film Nausicaa, the problem was answered by the end of the film. They bad guys left and the Valley was saved. From what I have heard, Miyazaki was never entirely satisfied with that movie. Everything was too clear cut. Nausicaa in the movie became much more pacifistic than her militaristic roots found in the manga. The change I suppose was to "make a better movie". In fact, by the time Miyazaki finished the manga series, he had come to the same conclusion that he had in Mononoke Hime: there was no solution to the problem. The ending of the Nausicaa manga is extremely ambigious. She had made a decision that could have killed off humanity - again, very ambigious.
So, when he felt he had the chance to revisit those themes he addressed in Nausicaa with his current views on man vs. nature, he naturally went ahead with the movie. If given the chance to redo something I creatively felt disappointed about, I would jump at it. Apparently he did too.
BTW: Everyone should read the Nausicaa mangas. :) -
Have to tell you out there that
Bakshi's WIZARD is a 4 letter word
in our house. Bakshi was talking
with Vaughn Bode about a doing an animation project when Vaughn died. A few years later he comes out with WIZARD and never contacted Vaughn's family. WIZARD is full of Bode characters. Even the main
character Necron 99 was taken from
Vaughn's Cobalt 60.
It happened again with the Beastie Boys. They sang about Vaughn in their hit SURE SHOT.
Mark got in touch with Adam Horowitz, the Beastie that wrote the song. He promised to do a merchandise deal because he was such a fan. He had Mark do some artwork and we never heard from him again. Someone told us later that he used the artwork for a backstage pass. TIBETAN FREEDOM CONCERT my ass. How about some money for a fellow artist? -
I don't agree with Biomonkenoid's assertion that "Momonoke Hime" didn't have a happy ending. Granted, not every bit of story thread was wrapped up nice and pretty but over all I thought "Momonoke Hime" ended with a happy ending in that ultimately the "bio-blobby monter thingie" was calmed and that not all things were completely destroyed.
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One of the best animes ever made. Like NAUSICAA it's a ghibli-production, so why shouldn't it be some kind of sequel. Since when isn't an artist allowed to use the same theme again. PM is actually better than NAUSICAA. It is poetic, quite violent and beautifully animated.
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To the guys who ask if PM is well animated. There's an average of 16 cels a second, so don't worry about "stand in one place and flap your mouth open and shut for minutes on end" syndrome that you see in cheap TV anime. Admittedly, they took the frame rate down low in a bunch of spots so that they could run at 24 fps in the action sequences. Have you ever seen Japanese animators working at 24fps? Several sequences are so smooth they almost look unreal. However, they do still happen to have a budget smaller than Rugrats, so they dropped lipsync. This is because lipsync roughly doubles the cost of a piece of animation. So by sacrificing good lip movement, they get everything else to look _much_ better.
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Just to clarify, little joe, "Nausicaa" was made before Studio Ghibli was established ... the production was funded by Animage (the magazine which had published the manga version), who chose a studio called "Topcraft" to do the animation. Topcraft had previously worked on Rankin-Bass films such as "The Hobbit" and "The Last Unicorn"... The film is included in the "Ghibli ga Ippai" laserdisc box set, however. And to Darth Daniboy, "Mononoke Hime" may not -rely- on digital technology, but it does contain about 15 minutes worth of CGI in the form of digital paint/compositing and effects animation (such as the swelling effect of Ashitaka's "curse wound"). It blends so well, however, that not many people notice...
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Maybe it's just me, but did anyone notice the incredible resemblance between the giant robot in this latest animation movie to the giant robots who lived on Miyazaki's mythical planet in "Laputa?"
Uncanny, if you ask me ... -
Mononoke-foke fo-fononoke ba-bananoke ba mi-mi-mo-nananoke....Mononoke!
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