Princess Mononoke (Dub) | Yôji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida | Sound? Good grief--your EYES will pop out!

Princess Mononoke (Dub) | Yôji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida | amazing

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Princess Mononoke ...

	Princess Mononoke (Dub) Yôji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida Miramax, 2001 average customer review:based on 828 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Sound? Good grief--your EYES will pop out!

I owned this DVD for 8-10 months before i unwrapped and watched it--I didn'T like "Spirited Away" (you tell me why; I don't know). But I loved "Grave of the Fireflies" from the same studio, and "Whiper of the Heart," which I think Miyazaki had a hand in.
Miyazaki takes the complexities of a simple problem (must the need for mechanization and what we make of natual resourses ruin nature?) and weaves a story of the most glorious creatures one has ever seen, imagined or not had the imagination to imagine. And although there is a hero and a heroine, nobody else is all good or all bad. I loved all the characetrs, from the girls rescued from a brothel to the (GULP!) Night Walker. Move over, Lawrence Olivier in Henry V (sorry; I was just thinking of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen).

There is a problem wih my DVD player, and I couldn't get the original soundtrack. I had no problems with the excellent actors in the English version (I think the Japanese are second only to Bergman in dubbing), but having read the reviews, I will watch it in japanese tomorrow at my friend's house.

LATER: The ENGLISH (dubbed) version is much better---because, first, the actors are all adequate to the task, but second, and more important, there is only so much subtitle you can fit on the screen at one time, and the subtitles to the Japanese version tend to be minimalist. The Japanese language is spoken rather quickly, and while the English-speaking actors could keep up, the subtitle-writers could not (besides, they have to take the reading speed of the audience into consideration as well).. (There have been movies where I have learned things from the subtitles that I hadn't even known were in the movies---this is NOT one of them!)You will learn a lot more of what's going on in the speech and thought of the characters--unless you know Japanese--if you watch the English language version.

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amazing

this movie is a classic. the animation is spectacular and the story very well done. I happen to be somewhat into japanese culture as of present, but before i was so into it, and people who i know now who are not into it, sometimes japanese media goes over their heads. the cultures are kind of different and place importance on different things and when a person used to seeing one kind of story or moral repeated over and over in different ways sees something else... well they may not immediately appreciate it (an example of this would be how at the end he doesn't end up with the girl. this happens in almost every western movie because we are very focused on the 'happy ending' fairytale, validating the storyline with the 'kiss at the end', but that doesn't happen in all cultures). however, i found princess mononoke to somewhat transcend this confusion, because the story is so relatable and well told. i found it to be so when i first watched it, which would be late elementary school, and feel this way even more now.

the story can be translated in many ways, but the general message i got out of it was the modern attempting to erase tradition. the people of iron town worked hard to destroy the forest because by doing so they could earn a living in the new world making iron. the only way they could do this however was to cut down the forests, which meant that they would have to kill the gods from the old world, who were already dying out. the thing is that the lady osono (or whatever) is painted in something of a bad light as she is cutting down the forest and killing the gods, but she is an amazingly strong humanist and a proactive woman in a time and place where women weren't liable to have that status (the status might help to paint her as a 'bad guy' however, because even though we are making progressions, many people are still very sexist... i would bet you that if not you yourself, someone you know thinks that women are by nature evil or devious... in 2008). So when looking at it in this light osono is opting for humanity. she takes in those lepers, she saves brothel workers from whatever fate they would face in brothels, etc. and yet she's the bad guy. interesting to note at any rate.

ashitaka is a great protagonist. a pacifist to the end. he goes on his journey to find something to remove his curse, not for selfish reasons i don't think, but to right the wrong. he's a pretty selfless person. at the beginning of the movie, the reason he got the curse was because his sister was in the way of the boar, so he had to shoot it, but before that he was trying to talk to it. this is basically how he acts throughout the movie. he tries to get things done without violence, but if it comes to it, he will resort to violence to protect himself or those he cares about.

didn't really notice the environmental message when i first saw it. i was more focused on cultural loss. but recently, with the environmental bludgeon the media has been playing around with, i noticed just how 'for nature' this movie was. traditionalism would of course take the stance against industry which would be a way to save the forest, so it makes sense, but i guess i just went into it too symbolically. it does have a pleasant environmental message however, better than a lot of other animated environmental movies.

so, to sum up, this is a great movie.

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A beautiful tale

good storyline, my kids watch it all the time, it's a little long but very enjoyable, this movie catches your attention. This is a movie you will watch over and over.

My take on things.

This movie has been my favorite since I was about ten. It is very good, and I loved it since me and my brother watched it for the first time. I would get it at the library again, and again, well i got bored getting it there, so i decided to buy it, and im so glad that I did.

Wonderful Surprise!

I didn't think I was going to like this lesser known Miyazaki film. I don't know what was wrong with me - I've liked all his others. "Spirited Away" is my favorite of his more popular movies. This story didn't look anything like that.

And it's not. This story is about the struggle of nature against human civilization, and man against animal, animal against man. Its message is very real today.

Beside the underlying story, what really had me taken was the thought put into this tale - all these interesting things you might never think of. A young girl raised by wolves (and she rides them!), and animal "bosses" or elders that are enormous compared to their followers (reminds me of typical video games where the boss is huge). The art was beautiful, just beautiful.

I've got the urge to watch this movie again, just to "live" in that world for a couple of hours once more.

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