Rating: Summary: Just Watch It Review: Just watch this movie. There are NO good guys and bad guys. They're for Disney movies. In this movie, there are just different parties and their goals. There's true Yin and Yang in everyone. For example, Claire Danes' character, San, is protecting the forest, but she's bloodthirsty. Minnie Driver's character, Lady Eboshi, wants to destroy the forest, but she took in the freakish outcasts known as Lepers whom no one else would accept. This movie will have your mouth open with one disturbing scene, but 20 minutes later you'll might even be near tears wit the sheer beauty of things. Just watch it. Bring your faimily too. Kids under 9 shouldn't watch this though.
Rating: Summary: "Fire Bad --Tree Pretty" Review: This is, indeed, a beautiful production; real eye-candy.I had no difficulties with the voices -- i particularly liked Billy Bob Thornton, who caught just the nuance with his characterisation that Jack Elam at his most comically villainous brings to live-action films. The story isn't all that complex, but the characters and their relationships *are*. Is the hunter, who wants the head of the Forest Spirit to win a fabulous reward that the Emperor has promised, an evil man? Certainly, many of his actions are what one might call evil or lead to evil, but i'm sure he doesn't think of himself as anything but a business man. Is the Lady of Irontown, who wants to kill the Forest Gods (demiurges incarnate as huge talking animals) and destroy the forest, so that she can mine ore more easily, evil? Certainly, evil will come of *that* plan -- but the community she wants the ore to support consists in large part of girls she has rescued from brothels and lepers whom no-one else will take in, whom she has not only taken in but made respected and respectable members of society, which certainly indicates she is something other than evil incarnate. Are the Forest Gods themselves, turning fang and claw and tusk against humanity, battling in blind fury when nothing else seems possible, evil? Hardly. But they are representative of a way that *must* pass with the coming of humanity, and hard as it seems, their time is over. Is "the system" evil? Is human civilisation, in and of itself, evil? Is it possible to reduce the whole issue, as Buffy does at one point on TV as "Fire bad -- Tree pretty", saying that wildness and trees take precedence over human progress and expansion? Or, conversely, to assert that, *of course* humanity's needs take precedence over those of nature and wilderness? The answer -- to either of the last two questions -- of course, is "No, it isn't." Everything must proceed by compromise, in balance, or we and the world we live in will go down to disaster. The earlier parts of this film look as if it may turn out to be a pure tree-hugger's "ecology" spiel, but by the end, it is obvious that the survivors (on both human and forest sides) have taken the lessons of their adventures to heart, and are probably going to manage to come to some sort of modus vivendi that will enable both to exist and to interfere only minimally with each other. Would the real world could learn such lessons. ((BTW -- i didn't read the subtitles, i listened to the English-dubbed version [which is excellent in terms of sound quality and voice selection], and i didn't notice anyone being referred to as "Princess Mononoke" or any variant thereupon. Is the title a descriptive phrase that merely *sounds* like a character name == "Princess of the Wolves", or some such -- or werenames changed for the dubbed version?))
Rating: Summary: Princess Mononoke - review Review: The Japaness did it again and made another great anime. Princess Mononoke is a grand story of man and nature, of evil and good and how they must learn to coexist. The one thing that should make this a great is the use of famous voices but all this aside the animation can only compare to itself. This will be forever one of the greats end of story.
Rating: Summary: The greatest anime ever ! Review: Anime with a complete and complex beautiful story, no annoying long humor sequences, no tons of reverb, I could go on and on. This movie should set an example for all the cookie cutter, lone rogue vs. the bad guys anime movies out there!
Rating: Summary: GREAT Review: This animated epic really amazed me, it was edge of the seat action, eye bogglin' art, and mind fryin' plot. This is my altime favorite anime, it has amazed me over and over. The plot is a prince warrior fights a demon that was taken by the pain of an iron bullet, thus he get cursed himself, " First it will give you great pain, then kill you" (excerpt from movie) He must leave the village and find what can cure him. GREAT MOVIE!!!! Most anime's don't get alot of stars according to the "Famous" Critics, but Rogert Ebert gives it 4 and a half stars! Grand movie, it will shock you! RATED- PG-13 for animated violence/gore, images of wouneded, and some language.
Rating: Summary: Miyazaki butchered Review: I'm sure some people will accuse me of being a purist. OK, I can live with that. BUT I don't think you have to be a purist to feel the way I do about this film. This film may have been the biggest seller of all time in Japan, but the English language version wasn't, isn't and will never be. Why? Because even if the translation was perfect, which it wasn't, there are WAY to many concepts inherent in the story that cannot be understood without extensive knowledge of Japanese history. Take the ending for example. I'm sure I'm not the only person who felt like the ending fell a bit flat. That's because, while I have studied Japanese history, I don't have the true FEELING of what it means to be a samurai, to follow the samurai way (bushido). I don't truly comprehend the honor system, as most Japanese people do. And while I do have some real experience with Japanese romantic relationships, I (and most westerners) don't share their belief in unrecoited, and even unspoken, love. On top of that, I strongly disagree with the casting choices made for many of the voices. Many of them were, in my opinion, simply monotonous, possibly because, I think, the voice actors were chosen because of the popularity of their names, rather than their actual abilities to do voice work, which is definitely different from acting in front of a camera. (Don't get me wrong, I love Gillian Anderson on camera.) And further on that subject, it just didn't fit to have have WESTERN American accents (and I am American) coming from traditional Japanese mouths, and it was even more inappropriate to have vastly different accents coming from characters living in one of the most homogeneous societies in the world. Once again, casting for the sake of popular names. NOBODY can fault Hayao Miyazaki for his work. The animation was fantastic, the story epic, and the music perfect. But after seeing (unfortunately proceeded by buying) this film, I MUCH prefer watching it in the original Japanese version, even though I can't follow the dialogue. I'll keep it, but only because it helps complete my Miyazaki collection.
Rating: Summary: Hmm...Mixed feelings about this one Review: When my sister bought this fabulous Dvd in the US, I was instilled with wonder that many of you will have felt when encountering a Miyazaki film for the first time. However, when I recently watched some of Miyazaki's other works in a Miyazaki film festival, I've changed my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I still love this movie, and I was impressed by the lack of any identifiable "Bad Guy". The English dub was among the best I've seen (Bravo Neil Gaiman! All hail the greatest western comic author!), but the likes of Claire Danes irritated me to no end. I liked the use of English voice actors (well, only one I suppose), but it seems fundamentally wrong for one of the leading characters to have a whiny voice with an American twang to it (cough cough, Sai, cough cough). As epic as some of his earlier films, yet with a depressingly cheesy ending. The musical score is catchy and fits the mood of the movie well, while the animation rolls on to capture your imagination. This being one of the first Miyazaki films to extensively use CG graphics, I feel they have mastered the art of electronically colouring scenes. But I felt the CG was used in such a way as to make the separation between hand drawn scenes and CG too obvious. I hope his next film, "Spirited Away", they will make better use of CG morphing technology. Unless trying to complete your Miyazaki collection, buy Nausicaa, Laputa, and Totoro first, otherwise leave this one for the odds and ends of your budget.
Rating: Summary: Sooooo beautiful Review: Princess Mononoke is one of my most favourite movies ever. Everything about it is sooooo beautiful: the plot, the animation, eeeeverything. o_O ... Just buy it.
Rating: Summary: A Japanese Anime Classic. Review: This is a monument among other anime classics such as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll or The Professional: Golgo 13. It's about a Young prince who has been bitten by a Boar and must seek The Princess Monononoke ( Ghost princess) to cure his disease, i can't spoil the rest of the plot to you cause this is a must see movie. Among on my list of the best of 1999.
Rating: Summary: Outstanding art Review: I was completly awed by this movie!This was the most beautifil movie I have ever seen!The art in this was amazing..I had to keep pausing the movie to gape at it's beauty..I definatly think this is well worth buying...you'll love it!! Anyone who doesnt love this movie must be blind..go and see it and you will see the glory that this movie brings!
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