Forum - View topicThe Wind Rises -- My Review of the Film and Dub.
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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Last night, I finally got a chance to watch The Wind Rises, the apparent swan song of the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. I have always enjoyed this man’s animated films, my favorites being Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Whisper of the Heart. That said, I was literally caught off guard with this movie. This is Miyazaki’s most "adult" film to date, and by that I don’t mean blood, gore, or sexual stuff — you know, the stuff you can find in a Hentai. It's a very down-to-earth, fictionalized account of Jiro Horikoshi, who gained infamous notoriety for developing Japan’s deadliest airplane bombers during World War II. Miyazaki presents the man as an exceptionally kind and caring person who is devoted to realizing his dream as an airplane designer (in part inspired by his literally dreamy encounters with the charismatic airplane designer Caproni) while caring for his beloved, a gentle, frail painter named Naoko whose internal clock is running out. All of this unfolds at an extremely slow pace over the course of two hours and six minutes. To be honest I was at first a little disappointed; usually Miyazaki’s previous work never felt so long, but this was an exception. There are no moments of action or excitement that exist in this film, with the only exceptions being the dream sequence and an earthquake which tears through Japan and causes a train to crash and derail spectacularly. I sometimes found the story very difficult to follow because of this, but my parents were intrigued. And to give credit to Miyazaki, the man never ceases to amaze with his talents of animation. It’s unfortunate that this is his last film; he will truly be missed. I think I may have to see the film again to fully comprehend the story, but having said that I’m still giving the film my highest rating.
I'm similarly mixed about Disney's dub, which is a rarity because I've enjoyed all the Disney-Ghibli dubs pretty much unreservedly (yes, even — and arguably especially — the ones Jack Fletcher helmed — those are still my favorites to listen to). There were bits about Disney's dub that I truly thought excelled. The voices of the children in the beginning of the movie were excellent and very well done, and I liked the use of different accents for characters from Italy and Germany. Considering that this is a tale about a Japanese man communicating with an Italian air force genius (at least in his dreams) and German soldiers, this brought a touch of authenticity that I really liked. As for the voices, it’s a mixed bag. The voices that I liked best were Stanley Tucci as Caproni, Martin Short as Kurokawa, and Mae Whitman as Jiro’s spunky little sister Kayo. All three perform their roles with gusto and enthusiasm. Tucci has a GREAT Italian accent that I thought was very fitting and appropriate for this man, and he's very charismatic. It's easy to see why Jiro would be inspired by this man to become an airplane designer. Short was LOADS of fun as Kurokawa, giving his short-tempered character a lot of humor and life, easily stealing every scene he's in. I also really enjoyed Whitman as Kayo; the energy she puts into the role is terrific. Emily Blunt is also fairly good as Naoko, but some of her lines fall a bit flat at times (and the chemistry between her and Levitt -- more on him later -- didn't strike me as particularly lively or convincing). Mandy Patinkin has a more serious role in this movie than his more comic turn in Castle in the Sky. He was terrific in the earlier dub, blessed with a fun role to begin with, but unfortunately he didn’t really stand out to me as much as he could have as Hattori. I found his turn less memorable and not as lively. The rest of the cast consists of John Krasinski as Honjo, who I actually did like for the most part — he's got a good voice and he performs the part well. However, many of the other actors didn't really stand out to me one way or the other (with the exception of the German-accented guy at the hotel), and, rather surprisingly, I didn't find Joseph Gordon-Levitt compelling as Jiro. Vocally, he sounds fine as the lead character, as I could imagine him having a voice like that, but to me his acting sounded very stiff and robotic. Even with the argument that he is staying true to the original Japanese performance (ironically, Hideaki Anno, who apparently didn't impress many viewers), which is not a good way to turn in an effective performance to begin with if it boils down to carbon copying, he didn’t really impress me. I don't know how he compares to Anno, but I personally think Gordon-Levitt could have done a much better job. Perhaps it's just me or maybe that I just wasn't so captivated by his character as I would have liked, but either way something about his turn seemed off, at least to me. My real quibbles with the dub have more to do with the timing of the dialogue to the mouth movements; ever since Jack Fletcher left, Disney's subsequent dubs haven't matched the dialogue as smoothly to the lipflaps as in the previous dubs, and I noticed a lot of lines that were mistimed and/or gaping mouths. This disappointed me a bit since Disney usually tries to pay close attention to how they match. I didn't have a problem with the script, though, as there were hardly any lines that I could detect that sounded awkward or out of place. All in all, this is probably my least favorite Miyazaki dub, but that isn't to say that it is bad. It's not. To me, it’s more like an "average" dub at best. Perhaps if the lead actor had put a bit more enthusiasm into the role and the character itself more appealing, I probably would have enjoyed the dub, but I didn't like it as much as the others. I think part of the problem might be Gary Rydstrom as the ADR director. His past Ghibli dubs Earthsea and Arrietty both sounded deadpan in places, and it's disappointing that this dub takes a similar path. Still, take my complaints with a grain of salt and go see The Wind Rises. Even if it's not my favorite Miyazaki movie, there are still some bits of it that really do excel. You may even enjoy the dub more than I did. I give the dub a *** out of *****, but the movie, after reevaluating my initially negative reaction, my highest rating. Last edited by TurnerJ on Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:42 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ghost_Wheel
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Funny this review comes up today, last night I got my chance to see it too. And wow, I was caught off guard with how fantastic that movie was. This is definitely outlier tier for me because it is simultaneously grounded in the real world and looking in from an outside perspective. In it's themes and presentation it almost feels like a great science fiction work in structure, but mapped onto an only slightly fantastical version of what are otherwise very relatable characters living in society as we remember it. As I write this I'm finding it to be more appropriate to read if you've seen the film, but it should be safe even if you haven't.
I guess first I can thank my lucky stars we have a dub, and a good one too, because it would be a sin to tear your eyes from the animation for even one second. We've got obviously gripping and fantastic moments like the warping pulse of the earthquake (a good minute of solid gold right there) and just about any cut of the planes. My favorite plane shot was probably the shot of the silver wing moving through the wind which came up during the design meeting because it really illustrated the fluid dynamics of the motion. Whenever a plane broke, you really understood why, first watching a weakness in a certain area show itself and then cascade into a tear which upsets the delicate balance of the whole thing and leads to it's inevitable destruction. I particularly liked how they showed us the structural collapse of the first Falcon before showing us Jiro's test flight of the next one. Then when Jiro gets asked if the strut was the cause of it, you seeing the crash evolve in time the same way he did lets you know that it was a little more complicated than that. I could go on about planes all day, but we also have subtle moments like the cadence with which the rain starts up and stops, the fantastic way that reflections and images get warped around and behind glass, just about everything involving the umbrella blowing scene, all the smoking, and even the inquisitive strength of Jiro's grip as he's looking at a plane. This movie expresses true passion in a way that I rarely ever see in fiction. Personally, as a mathematician and a scientist, I felt a strong relation to Jiro and the community that surrounds him. I really enjoyed seeing this take on engineering, watching the problem solving process that the teams are going through. There's a small undercurrent of themes propagated by the poem's message; as tension increases in Jiro's life, he adjusts his goals and the process by which he achieves those goals fluidly and often by tacking in a orthogonal direction. In that sense, he's extremely flexible in his ability to keep a cool head during the earthquake, to get the most out of his job as he has to travel all the world, to design planes that fit the task at hand, and to develop his relationship with Naoko. Watching him pore over his work and interact with his friends and colleagues really gives me a sense of why he does it. The work feels real and tangible, and the ideas that drive the work do too. Caproni's dream sequences are the most fantastical element of the film and also some of the most stunning. The themes of the movie are made much more explicit in these, as the dream sequences tend to have a particular outside perspective on the matter. How artists and scientists benefit the human race in the long term and the value of spectacular innovation is really driven home, as is the contrast with the fact that these artists live in a society that forces them to use their talents for war. The scene with Caproni's community as it fills the plane and strains it is also thematically striking because in the dream, a battleground of ideas, the planes going to war drift off into the distance, soon to be sadly forgotten, the ideas of the planes soar among us to be admired and create a lasting impression, but even these ideas aren't as strong as a society which at least locally has the power to produce these ideas. Caproni was blessed to have the community he did, as was Jiro, and the implication is that a different society, more receptive to this kind of artwork, would thrive in new and unimaginable ways. The love between Jiro and Naoko also compliments and supports the rest of the story very well. As a painter and a designer, they're both idealists and artists, and Jiro courts her in a scene that feels like a dance to me. Jiro is firing a small wooden plane with a rubber band, sharing a part of himself with her, as she accepts it, takes it and and throws it back out, contributing part of herself to show Jiro what she sees in him. In a sense, the relationship they build has it's own structure to it that persists in Jiro's dream sequence at the very end. Jiro wanted to be with her and allow that to flourish as long as it could because just like his designs inevitably change the path of human progress, the relationship changes Jiro in a beautiful irreversible way which even reflects in his planes. If it displayed any one of these aspects I wouldn't hesitate to call this good, but all of it together absolutely stuns me. I was happy to see it in theaters and I can't wait to see it again sometime. |
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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Disney hasn't done any dubs that can be counted as truly awful (although Miyazaki purists accustomed to the Japanese versions may argue otherwise), but this was the first dub of theirs that I wasn't so thrilled with. It's not BAD by any means, but it's not good either. Some parts of it are great, others not so much. That's why I consider it an average dub. |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Awful Disney dubbs:
1- Kiki's Delivery Service 2- Castle in the Sky These two are horrible, really horrible (just read this review of Castle in the Sky here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2238GRMJLBGBF/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002ZTQVHK&nodeID=2625373011&store=movies-tv). The films really suffer since they change much of the script! That's an aggression to the work of art that these films constitute and even reminds me of something like this: 
@Ghost_Wheel, your review made me even more eager to watch The Wind Rises at the theater, even though it's dubbed. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4613 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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The local arthouse theater is showing both the dub and the sub. I just saw the sub and was so impressed with the film I almost put down another $10 to watch the dub. Maybe I still will.
By the end I could see the appropriateness of Anno's voice. Jiro really isn't an emotional guy. He has imagination, but he is also a super pragmatic uber-nerd. This is a old world, Japanese, aeronautic Bill Gates we're talking about here. That's not saying that another actor couldn't have done better and still get that nerdiness across, but the character of Anno's voice does fit the character of the film. It's interesting that they apparently went with a reproduction of Anno's performance but I think the real problem with Levitt would be that his voice isn't really nerdy enough. Someone like Jason Schwartzman might have been the more appropriate voice for the role. Go full on flat-voiced nerd here, not a dramatic actor reading flatly. |
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Joji5
Posts: 4 |
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I've seen both the sub and the dub. Went to see the sub first since I wasn't sure I would even be able to see the dub in my area. Turned out it was released in my area the week after and is still playing but in limited theaters and dub only. I always prefer the sub over a dub but in both my complain is that the dialog in other languages aren't subtitled. The other issue is with some of the translation. For example, Jiro's sister calls him ni-ni-sama in the beginning. It a baby way of saying onii-san or brother. What you get from it is that he is from a very well to do family which isn't really visually indicated. Disney should have come up with some way to express this and also for Naoko. By the way, the mysterious German is probably one of Stalin's greatest spy, Richard Sorge.
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egoist
 Posts: 7762 |
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Yours? You better have copyrighted it else it's mine now.
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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Excuse me, but I thought those two dubs were fantastic. And no, I refuse to ever read that review. Mine is the only opinion that counts. I don't care what some guy on Amazon says. I've seen my share of bad dubs, but those two do not count as awful dubs. At least to me. Yes, both dubs DO rewrite the script in places, but honestly, I didn't find any major faults with them. I know some people hate these two dubs, but I disagree that they are horrible, because they're not. The performances on both are fantastic, and at least they tell the same stories. The man who wrote both of these dubs is no talentless hack; he is someone who DID, in fact, know about Miyazaki long before he was chosen to write both scripts. His scripts had to be approved by Ghibli long before the films were dubbed. Granted, you're entitled to your opinion, but in my opinion, those two dubs are masterpieces compared to "Warriors of the Wind". That dub was worse than anything Disney ever did, these two dubs included. (The only script change I could've done without was the last part of Sheeta's speech toward the end of Laputa, but on the other hand, it's not a big deal. The film is still entertaining either way.) The only really bad dub of "Castle in the Sky" that exists is the version that JAL/Streamline did. THAT version is absolutely lifeless and robotic. I'd rather watch Disney's dub any day. Is it flawless? No. But is it unlistenable? Absolutely not, the performances are lively and fun, and it's certainly worth it to hear Mark Hamill as the evil guy and Hisaishi's glorious rescore. And "Kiki", I really don't care about the differences; it still holds up. Interestingly, Disney reissued both films in 2010 minus some of the extra dialogue and music. Oddly, though, I prefer these two dubs as they originally were. Sure, some of the additional lines are a bit superfluous, but for the most part I thought they brought more color to both films. Musically, though, "Laputa"'s rescore is the better musical edit; I wasn't so thrilled with "Kiki"'s music edits (they were OK but nothing great) sans the Sydney Forest songs, they were fine. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I see. I am not familiar with the other dubbs of these two films but to me they felt really bad. Overall, it's always better to watch films in their original language since you are watching the entire thing (dialogue and film) under the same artistic direction.
Just watched Wind Rises recently. I agree completely with your review. It's a great film, the best Miyazaki made since Spirited Away in 2001 and it is Miyazaki's most serious and adult film. A must watch for anybody interested in animation. |
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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Oh trust me, the '80s dub of LAPUTA is absolutely, hideously, really bad. Disney's version is a masterpiece compared to it. As for the original version, I don't have anything against it, I just prefer the dubs. Miyazaki himself has no problems with the Disney dubs and he thinks viewers should enjoy his movies in their language of choice. So why not the dubs? To me, they're all well done (aside from tHE WIND RISES; that's their only "failure", but that's not to say it's bad. It's just average.) |
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