Princess Mononoke

Original Title: もののけ姫
Romanized: Mononoke Hime
Literal: Monster Princess

Plot Synopsis

In ancient times, the forces of man and the gods of the beasts are beginning to clash over the forests and their natural resources. When young Ashitaka, the prince of an isolated village, kills a rampaging boar god, he is afflicted with a curse. In a matter of time it will kill him if he cannot find a cure. So, he travels away from his home to find the cause of the boar god's curse and hatred of humans. There he finds humans fighting not only amongst themselves, but a town of outcasts where the soil is mined for iron. The people of this town are determined to take the resources from the forest near them, but that forest is the home of the forest god, and is protected by the wolf clan. There is also one human who fights with the beasts--San, the Princess Mononoke. Ashitaka seeks only to find answers, but he soon finds himself in the middle of an epic struggle.

Quick Review

Rating: 5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-08-30

Anything Hayao Miyazaki puts his hand to is all but guaranteed instant anime classic status, but Princess Mononoke deservedly ranks among the masterpieces of the medium, and in my opinion of cinema in general. It is a serious--yet beautiful--allegorical tale that doesn't take any easy ways out and paints a more complicated picture than movies that try many times harder than it apparently does. The feel is earthy and the solid plot populated with interesting, well-developed characters. Mononoke's only significant flaw is that it is very much an alternate retelling of Nausicaa, but it distinguishes itself from that film by the drastically different setting and murky morality. Unlike most "man versus nature" stories, the comforting black and white answers that make things easy are nowhere to be found. It is also, as expected, a visual feast, though instead of the breathtaking flight sequences of most of Miyazaki's films the visual treats consist of beautifully realistic natural settings and sharp, gritty action.

Princess Mononoke may not be without flaw, but it's certainly close, and it manages to be entertaining, mentally engaging, morally complex, and beautiful to behold in almost every way. It is the most "mature" of Miyazaki's films, and is in serious contention for the position of his greatest work.

US DVD Review

Miramax is known for handling unusual material, and they did a pretty good job with the movie itself, but I was skeptical about how their eventual video release would be. Surprisingly, the DVD is a fine piece of work. On the down side, there are essentially no extras--just some trailers. On the up side, the actual movie is as good as anybody could ask for; the video is very sharp and vivid (though not quite perfect on close scrutiny), there are fine Dolby 5.1 soundtracks in both Japanese and English, an English dub transcription track, and a real, live, literal translation of the original Japanese (important, since it is somewhat different from the English script).

As an extra (and extremely pleasing surprise), if you're watching in Japanese, you get the original version; the opening features the original Japanese text overlay (with translation in the subtitles) instead of the voiceover used in the English version, the title is in Japanese, and the Japanese credits are intact (with major voice players translated in the subtitles, although they did leave out a few). Not fancy, but as far as solid productions go, this disc is near perfect in my book.

Content Guide

Maturely themed and relatively (though never gratuitously) violent, it appropriately earned a PG-13 rating.

Violence: 3 - Several relatively gory animal deaths and a fair amount of quite serious human violence as well.

Nudity: 1 - Essentially none.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Indirect romance and generally mature themes.

Language: 1 - Nothing of note.

Notes and Trivia

For those wondering about the setting, the movie theoretically takes place in Japan some time during the 15th century, a feudal period before the country was unified, and the general scenery and architecture is based on fact. The story does, however, obviously take significant liberties with the reality of the time; aside from obvious fantasy, the musket-like guns used in the story probably did not exist, the creature Ashitaka rides is entirely fictional, and while Ashitaka's isolated tribe is based on an actual ethnic group, they had been wiped out or assimilated by the time the story theoretically takes place.

Released theatrically in the US by Miramax, Princess Mononoke grossed a few million dollars in relatively limited release. At the time of its release it was the all-time highest-grossing film in Japan, a title later taken by Titanic, and again by Spirited Away after that.

Mononoke Hime was also, at the time of its production, the most expensive anime film ever made, with a budget of about 2.4 billion yen. In comparison, this is over twice as much as Akira's budget, and thanks to Japan's near-zero inflation rate, little adjustment is necessary to compare the figures.

Mononoke Hime was the first stage of Disney's deal to release Ghibli films in North America in completely uncut form (Miramax is a division of Disney, for those unfamiliar). Disney has since released more or less all of the Ghibli catalog either in theaters or direct to home video. The "absolutely uncut" stipulation in the deal was certainly a boon to Miyazaki fans--that is almost certainly the only reason all the violence in Princess Mononoke was left intact in the US release. It was apparently spurred by the treatment Nausicaa saw in a very early US release as "Warriors of the Wind," a dub-only video release that drastically edited the film, changed characters' names, and altered the plot. That movie is usually cited as the reason that Castle of Cagliostro (and some Lupin III TV episodes) was the only Miyazaki production to make it to North America until quite recently.

Availability

Translated and released in the US by Miramax (a division of Disney) and available on bilingual DVD. It was originally released theatrically, and on subtitled and dubbed VHS in addition to the DVD.

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