Princess Mononoke

There have been many wonderful Miyazaki movies that have made it to the U.S in recent years, and most of them have been highly suggested to the family audience. KIKI, SPIRITED AWAY and CASTLES IN THE SKY among others have been excellent family quality entertainment that young and old can find something to enjoy in common.

The difference with PRINCESS MONONOKE is that it is NOT aimed at the younger audience, and it is a surprise watch knowing that the child minded movie is Miyazaki ’s normal playground in filmmaking.

That’s not to say that it isn’t a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a reason that Disney chose not to hype this one when they distributed nearly the rest of Miyazaki ’s movies. It is serious, it is harsh, it is bloody and possibly scary for the younger viewer. Heck, even some of my college age buddies got the creeps over one or two scenes.

The story itself revolves around Ashitaka, a warrior and hunter in a strange land who gets infected with a strange curse when he kills a wild demon boar that is attacking his village. He is banished from the village and goes off on his own with his cool looking elk steed wandering the country looking to either cure his ailment or find a place to die in peace.

Eventually he comes to learn that the curse is giving him superhuman powers (a scene graphically illustrated by him shooting arrows at lightspeed, chopping off limbs and heads without effort), and he comes eventually to the human settlement of IRON TOWN . It’s run by babes, and the forces and animals of nature hate them for destroying their forests.

Evil human bounty hunters are also after the King of the Forest , a great spirit who does this and that. Ashitaka meets a human girl names San who has been raised by wolves and is more in touch with the spirit world, and she wants to kill the leader of Iron Town and have revenge for the destruction of nature. Ashitaka is concerned for both sides, wanting to protect the humans of the town but at the same time not wanting the spirit of the forest to be harmed either. He also has affections for San, who is torn between her humanity that she has rejected until meeting Ashitaka and her wolf family.

This is, first and foremost, a depressing, bloody movie, but it is as all of the films made by Miyazaki an artistic masterpiece. There are times you just cannot believe what you are seeing. Of course that is never what makes a movie, but there is a good story backing it up, despite my distaste for preachy “evils of humanity” stories that make it seem like we are a blight on the whole earth. I suppose because of some of the characters actually are good examples of humanity and there is a better representation that makes it easier for me to swallow.

The characters are appealing for the most part, but you tend to get a little distracted sometimes by the amount of violence and for the more concerned family audience the swearing, which is odd for a movie set in the mythical middle-ages. I guess the bottom line is that if you are an older anime fan, and a lover of adventurous stuff and Miyazaki in general, this is an excellent and in truth very good movie. If you want something for your ankle biters to watch, take the rating very, VERY seriously. It’s a HARD PG-13. If it was live it would be an R, but as it stands being animated it manages to escape that.

I greatly enjoy it for the sake of it being a Miyazaki film, a film with cool creatures and powers and good characters, but this is the most bloody, saddening and weirdo spiritual film of them all. A lot of heavy Japanese mystical stuff in here, but if you take in the light of fantasy then it is quite entertaining.

Voice Acting: 1/2 The American Dub is pretty good, but since this was a major film in Japan that tends to make our companies get better actors than the normal anime imports.

Special effects:

Language: 1/2 Not the worst language you could ever hear in an anime title, but not the best either, especially as I said for a movie with a middle ages sort of feel

Sexual content: San’s wardrobe is pretty inoffensive for a chick who lives with animals, but the babes in IRON TOWN who work wear loose fitting robes that allow for a lot of cleavage shots, and they talk about being former hookers. The only other thing is San feeding Ashitaka some weird plant by regurgitating it in a way, but actually she just chews it up and then lip locks Ashitaka to get it into his mouth.

Violence: 1/2 Sword play, explosions taking off heads and limbs, decaying bodies and a whole slew of other violent things make this a much more mature film than one would guess. NOT…I repeat…NOT for innocent minded young viewers.

Heart enlightenment factor: Aside from liking the characters and being happy that things turn out more or less OK in the end, there’s really not a lot to feel good about in this movie.

Soundtrack: 1/2 Joe Hisaishi is Myiazaki’s favorite composer, and he’s the ONLY guy to do these movies, whether they’re cute flying witches or scary depressing demon creatures.

Overall: The lowest rating I’ve personally given to a Miyazaki film, and it’s pretty obvious why. As much as I like some stuff in MONONOKE, it’s the light hearted adventures from Miyazaki that I love the best, so this one can’t exactly climb too high on my favorites list.