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REVIEW: Princess Mononoke BD+DVD


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Lord Dcast



Joined: 07 Nov 2014
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 5:06 pm Reply with quote
I had a feeling ANN would give this all A+s on this. It's just that good. And dubtitles don't really matter that much...
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pachy_boy



Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 5:13 pm Reply with quote
It seems I stand as the black sheep with this film, and I write this post knowing I'm going to get a lot of crap for it, but regardless--

When I first saw it back in the day, I hated it to high hell. But lately I've come around to it--in that I don't hate it like I used to. But no matter how many times I watch it, no matter how I try to refresh myself for a new perspective, I just don't see the same movie as everyone else does.

I've heard people insist this is a shade-of-gray movie where you don't know which side to root for. Every viewing, I'm watching a town of industrialists trying to wipe out the forest spirits via genocide, to take their lands and natural resources. And the forest spirits resort to the countermeasures they do for the purpose of saving themselves and their homeland. Shades of gray? What is so "evil" or "immoral" about the forest spirits defending themselves while Lady Eboshi resorts to cruel means in driving them into a corner with no way out? That's like calling the Native Americans of old "immoral" for retaliating against colonialists for directly trying to wipe them out. And no, upon every viewing as far as I could make out, Eboshi never tried making peace with them first, she went straight to war against them, and what else were the forest spirits supposed to do?

In that scene where spoiler[San was about to confront Eboshi, and Eboshi has armed widows come out and say "answer for their husbands that you've killed." All I could think about was that their husbands are dead because she was the one who declared war against the forest spirits in the first place, enlisting said men into the crossfire, forcing the forest spirits to act against her, and she tries using that as an excuse to distract any huge involvement she had while trying to paint San as the bigger villain.]Yes, Lady Eboshi has a human side with the way she gives both prostitutes and lepers a second chance at life, I totally get that. But if that's supposed to distract me from her war-mongering, it's not enough and comes across like an excuse, spoiler[and her "comeuppance" wasn't nearly enough]. The movie's ending tries spoiler[conveying the illusion of something happy or something instilled with hope, but all I could think about there was that with the deer god dead, the village has full control to do whatever they want, and whatever recovering greenery we saw will just perish later.]

One other thing, all the women extras are depicted in a "strong feminist" light--but at the cost of directly depicting the male extras as a bunch of pathetic dweebs, which makes the women just come across as nasty. To me that's not entirely dissimilar to depicting the mom from Ponyo as a "strong feminist" character despite or maybe even because of her reckless driving (and childish behavior) and endangering her son for it. I'm all for strong women characters, but not like what I've talked about (thankfully it's been done better in other Miyazaki/Ghibli flims).

This movie and its characters (Ashitaka irritatingly especially) tried so hard to manipulate me to view it in a certain way, and while it definitely worked with most people, it still hasn't worked on me, although I genuinely tried to let it. This was the first Miyazaki film I've ever seen coincidentally enough, but if that wasn't the case I probably would've had a higher opinion of it, if not flat-out love it. The next Miyazaki film I've ever seen was Spirited Away, and that was what saved everything for me and got me interested in checking out not only Miyazaki's library but Ghibli's entire catalogue, and I haven't been disappointed since. And if anyone's wondering, Nausicaa is my favorite of Miyazaki's, in which it's similar to Mononoke but to me is the complete antithesis to it in almost every way, although I mostly love it as its own standalone epic fantasy adventure story, the manga even more so.

To clarify, I do not view Mononoke as a bad movie, just an overrated one, which I suppose will make little to no difference to certain people.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 6:17 pm Reply with quote
pachy_boy wrote:
When I first saw it back in the day, I hated it to high hell. But lately I've come around to it--in that I don't hate it like I used to. But no matter how many times I watch it, no matter how I try to refresh myself for a new perspective, I just don't see the same movie as everyone else does.


Again, most of the praise comes from people who'd hypnotized themselves into praising it when it came out, from later-generation folks who had a copy pushed into their hands from the first folks, or--everyone, all together now--folks who didn't realize Ghibli had MADE any movies before 1999.
Okay, how many times have you wanted to punch some new fan who said his favorite movies were "Mononoke, Howl, and Ponyo, after I saw Spirited Away!"

Me, I remember being in the same psychologically conflicted position: Can it be true that I actually....hate...a Miyazaki movie? Shocked
(And not just grit my teeth through it, like Nausicaa or the last half hour of Castle in the Sky, but actually not want to own it on disk?)
And then Howl's Moving Castle came along, I realized I'd lost my Ghibli virginity, and yes, I could leave a few titles off my shelf with a clear conscience.
For my generation, who guarded their Totoro and Kiki fansub VHS's like Gutenberg bibles, this was a major epiphany.

Quote:
I've heard people insist this is a shade-of-gray movie where you don't know which side to root for.


And so we settle for not sympathizing with anybody.
And, to quote the MST3K-ism, "Y'know, the reason this battle is so exciting is because we care about the characters! Razz"
Okay, we care about Lady Eboshi because she's the only "real" character, but fully realizing she's supposed to lose and screw things up for everybody, like Queen Kushana.

Quote:
One other thing, all the women extras are depicted in a "strong feminist" light--but at the cost of directly depicting the male extras as a bunch of pathetic dweebs, which makes the women just come across as nasty.


Although we do like the one foundry woman who says "Respect, what's that, nobody ever showed us any!" But maybe because we subconsciously realize it's K.T. Vogt doing Washuu's voice. (Jack Fletcher directed the dub.)
But yeah, Frozen had NOTHING on ol' leftwing Hayao hammering on the Y-chromosomes to praise the female role models. Except for Ashitaka, of course, as Nausicaa had a boy ally of her own.

Quote:
This movie and its characters (Ashitaka irritatingly especially) tried so hard to manipulate me to view it in a certain way, and while it definitely worked with most people, it still hasn't worked on me, although I genuinely tried to let it. .


I remember a cross-Pacific Japanese culture site at the time getting into a discussion about "Why didn't the Americans like Mononoke?"
(Which, at the time, would be like our wondering why another country didn't like Avatar or Frozen...And being told how corny and manipulative their culture found that movie.)
In Japan, "Ecology is the last refuge of a scoundrel", and no matter how painfully unsympathetic or manipulative the story was, they found the Man vs. Nature battle "inspiring", "evocative", "soulful", etc.
While we, on the other hand, in a country that's had enough good animation to appreciate story and character, were dissing the "bloody, depressing Woodsy-the Owl movie".
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TEPopka



Joined: 21 Nov 2014
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 7:13 pm Reply with quote
It's fine not to like this movie, but to say that people only like it because they hypnotized themselves into liking it is just dumb. You don't think anyone who likes Princess Mononoke has ever thought about the reasons why, or is actually telling the truth when they say they find it to be an enjoyable movie? I could just as easily say anyone who doesn't love it is just being a contrarian to look cool, but I would be just as wrong.
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Kikaioh



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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 8:05 pm Reply with quote
I personally didn't quite like Princess Mononoke so much when it came out, though maybe I should give it a watch again to see if my opinion's changed any. I first watched it in theaters with the English dub when it premiered way back in the day, but unfortunately I've never been all that big into historical Japanese culture and mythology, and I found the movie to be a bit more serious and maybe less entertaining than I had been hoping, given Hayao Miyazaki's somewhat campier previous works. I can say though I did leave the theatre impressed by the scope of vision, sense for background and movement, and scale of the movie, there was a sincerity and quality to the production I could appreciate.
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Fronzel



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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 8:27 pm Reply with quote
pachy_boy wrote:
I've heard people insist this is a shade-of-gray movie where you don't know which side to root for. Every viewing, I'm watching a town of industrialists trying to wipe out the forest spirits via genocide, to take their lands and natural resources. And the forest spirits resort to the countermeasures they do for the purpose of saving themselves and their homeland. Shades of gray? What is so "evil" or "immoral" about the forest spirits defending themselves while Lady Eboshi resorts to cruel means in driving them into a corner with no way out? That's like calling the Native Americans of old "immoral" for retaliating against colonialists for directly trying to wipe them out. And no, upon every viewing as far as I could make out, Eboshi never tried making peace with them first, she went straight to war against them, and what else were the forest spirits supposed to do?

You're overlooking the third force in the struggle; the samurai. The people of Eboshi's town are the dregs of the society outside, but there they freely prosper because of the (if I'm remembering correctly) iron deposits located there, and for that they're attacked by samurai who want to take it from them. Their lives are at stake apart from what the forest creatures do, and that's how they think about what's going on. They're not going to let the grievances of the forest stop them from staying out from underneath samurai tyranny.

That's the "greyness" of the conflict; both sides are fighting for their survival and are uninterested in the consequences of their goals have for the other side.
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Doodleboy



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 9:01 pm Reply with quote
Fronzel wrote:

You're overlooking the third force in the struggle; the samurai. The people of Eboshi's town are the dregs of the society outside, but there they freely prosper because of the (if I'm remembering correctly) iron deposits located there, and for that they're attacked by samurai who want to take it from them. Their lives are at stake apart from what the forest creatures do, and that's how they think about what's going on. They're not going to let the grievances of the forest stop them from staying out from underneath samurai tyranny.

That's the "greyness" of the conflict; both sides are fighting for their survival and are uninterested in the consequences of their goals have for the other side.


You would think that... But the film is even more complicated then that.

Miyazaki wrote:
Such things were rather common. Tatara Ba eroded the valleys and mountains with water to wash out iron sands. Water is conducted through a gutter, and hits a cliff. Then, the muddy water is conducted through (another) gutter to allow the iron sands to precipitate out gradually. The process pollutes the water, and washes mud downstream. So the villages and the river downstream get buried in mud. It was a disaster for those who grew rice.

Therefore, the farmers downstream and the Tatara people were often in conflict. When the local Samurai attacked Tatara Ba, they were not doing something bad; they were doing something rightful. In that time, Samurai and farmers weren't clearly separated (i.e., some Samurai were also farmers). So it's natural to have a conflict when Tatara Ba's presence became bigger.


Full interview here.

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/m_on_mh.html

All three parties, the forest spirits, Iron-town, and the Samurai are doing what's best for their respective communities. All of them are doing what is "right", all of them are fighting for their survival and existence. If Eboshi was born in today's time she'd probably be a hero, but the good she does to her own community is in direct conflict with the Forest and with the farmers. It's only Ashitaka, an outsider to the forest, Tatara-ba and the Samurai, who can see the harm this is causing.

Yeah, that's why I love this movie.
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Fronzel



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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 9:38 pm Reply with quote
Doodleboy wrote:
You would think that... But the film is even more complicated then that.

Miyazaki wrote:
Such things were rather common. Tatara Ba eroded the valleys and mountains with water to wash out iron sands. Water is conducted through a gutter, and hits a cliff. Then, the muddy water is conducted through (another) gutter to allow the iron sands to precipitate out gradually. The process pollutes the water, and washes mud downstream. So the villages and the river downstream get buried in mud. It was a disaster for those who grew rice.

Therefore, the farmers downstream and the Tatara people were often in conflict. When the local Samurai attacked Tatara Ba, they were not doing something bad; they were doing something rightful. In that time, Samurai and farmers weren't clearly separated (i.e., some Samurai were also farmers). So it's natural to have a conflict when Tatara Ba's presence became bigger.Neat. I was just relying on memory; is the industrial pollution of Iron Town actually depicted in the film?

Neat. I was just relying on memory; is the industrial pollution of Iron Town actually depicted in the film?
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Key
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 9:51 pm Reply with quote
EricJ2 wrote:
Again, most of the praise comes from people who'd hypnotized themselves into praising it when it came out, from later-generation folks who had a copy pushed into their hands from the first folks, or--everyone, all together now--folks who didn't realize Ghibli had MADE any movies before 1999.

Yeah, no. Stating that you don't like the movie is one thing, but you're crossing a line when you start implying that you couldn't be in your right mind if you praised the movie. Just accept that other people genuinely saw more in it than you did and move on.
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Sachiko2010



Joined: 11 Dec 2010
Posts: 68
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:45 pm Reply with quote
Silverias wrote:
I contacted Disney on this. The response I got was to ask for my full mailing address, and a statement that they are 'working on a solution,' so my hopes are pretty high.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone who bought is to contact them here, and let them know that you want to see it fixed, too: http://www.disneystudioshelp.com/contact-bddvd.html


Thanks for posting this, it's very helpful. I had spent a few minutes the other day trying to find an email contact at Disney but wasn't able to.

I've sent a polite email saying how disappointed I was (to be honest, I was flat out appalled when I realized it was dubtitling) and asking if there is any way they'll offer a replacement program for this one.

Here's keeping our fingers crossed.
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Jose Cruz



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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 12:10 am Reply with quote
residentgrigo wrote:
Roger Ebert placed Princess Mononoke sixth on his top ten movies of 1999. The best animated movie of all in my eyes but i i prefer Akira.


The 5 above it are pretty underwhelming compared to Princess Mononoke though. Rober Ebert had decent taste among American film critics, being able to walk through his prejudices a little bit more than other critics and recognize artistic talent in a work of non-western popular culture. Though, overall, he was not a specialist in animation and I wouldn't actually give much weight to his opinion on any anime film. Zac is an actual connoisseur of the animation medium who knows what's great.

Princess Mononoke is one of Miyazaki's best films, together with Totoro and Nausicaa. And of course, one of the best movies ever made.
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jojothepunisher



Joined: 04 Sep 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 12:23 am Reply with quote
I first watched this film when I was like six years old and ever since then it became my most favorite film of all time, and in my opinion it is still THE BEST film made by Hayao Miyazaki. It was good that the review mentioned how Miyazaki rised to stardom with Spirited Away, but that was in my opinion a simple family entertainment and it doesn't have the same ambition of story telling as that of Mononoke. It was also worth noting that the ending of Mononoke was built up perfectly and that the two main characters didn't end up becoming romantic interests, something that Miyazaki did in the past as mentioned in the recent review of Whisper of the Heart.

Last edited by jojothepunisher on Wed Nov 26, 2014 12:28 am; edited 1 time in total
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Jose Cruz



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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 12:24 am Reply with quote
EricJ2 wrote:
I remember a cross-Pacific Japanese culture site at the time getting into a discussion about "Why didn't the Americans like Mononoke?"
(Which, at the time, would be like our wondering why another country didn't like Avatar or Frozen...And being told how corny and manipulative their culture found that movie.)
In Japan, "Ecology is the last refuge of a scoundrel", and no matter how painfully unsympathetic or manipulative the story was, they found the Man vs. Nature battle "inspiring", "evocative", "soulful", etc.
While we, on the other hand, in a country that's had enough good animation to appreciate story and character, were dissing the "bloody, depressing Woodsy-the Owl movie".


As a Brazilian I must say first:

1. I don't understand what do you mean with "in a country with had enough good animation", because I though you were speaking of the US. The US does not produce real animation, it is either crude 2nd rate comedies with terrible direction and no visual value whatsoever or the TV as a babysitter stuff. I watched more US animated films than Japanese and yes I understand well what I am saying, US animation is a very underdeveloped field outside gross comedy or children's fare, the same applies to everywhere else in the world but Japan, this is of course obvious to anybody who watched substantial volumes of anime that I find such statement to be puzzling.

2. I first watched Princess Mononoke in 2012, in fact, I watched it 3 times over a period of 4 weeks. I found it an incredibly accomplished film but I only understood it's greatness on a second watch after I stopped paying attention to my "ecological film are cr*p" brainwash. To compare a work of such aesthetic rigor such as Princess Mononoke with 2nd rate simplistic garbage such as Avatar (which is obviously influenced by Princess Mononoke) is ludicrous. Read the first 160 pages of Miyazaki's book Turning Point to get an idea of the themes of the film. Even Japanese historians, monks, writers and philosophers saw the greatness of that film and in fact, some old people who were hostile to manga had their views changed about the manga medium thanks to the film (in Japan, anime is considered primarily an offshoot of manga).

3. The second time I watched Princess Mononoke was one of the strongest emotional experiences I had in my life while watching a film or TV series. In terms of anime, only my first watch of Madoka stands on the same level of impact. Hollywood has not produced a film this powerful since Apocalypse Now in the 1970's.

jojothepunisher wrote:
I always tell my friends that princess mononoke is my most favorite film of all time, and that it is THE BEST film made by Hayao Miyazaki. It was good that the review mentioned how Miyazaki rised to stardom with Spirited Away, but that was in my opinion a simple family entertainment and it doesn't have the same ambition of story telling as that of Mononoke. It was also worth noting that the ending of Mononoke was built up perfectly and that the two main characters didn't end up becoming romantic interests, something that Miyazaki did in the past as mentioned in the recent review of Whisper of the Heart.


I "might" disagree on Spirited Away. Read my review of it on the my anime review thread I started in the anime section.

A problem with the notion of "family entertainment" that was created by Disney is that Miyazaki's complex masterpieces that are not obviously mature films get bundled together with second rate kiddie movies. As result animation fans who are not interested in kiddie films lose the opportunity to enjoy these masterpieces. Totoro is superficially a kiddie movie but it's completely different from any family western animated feature ever made.

TurnerJ wrote:
I also think it's interesting to see that Miyazaki is not particularly fond of other forms of Japanese animation and thinks of it as "junk". That part I don't quite agree with him about because there are other non-Ghibli works that I have enjoyed as well (Lodoss, Nadia, Fullmetal Alchemist, Sword Art Online, the list goes on and on).


If you think Sword of Art Online is great your tastes in animation are not the most "refined". Anyway, Miyazaki said that he wouldn't recommend most OVA's to Roger Ebert because they use violence and sex as ends into themselves. Miyazaki also said that Hollywood movies are manipulate garbage and that even Apocalypse Now is garbage (a movie about "not understanding", he said, due to the US's lack's of understanding of defeat in war, since they couldn't win that war and think of war as a videogame). He later said he dislikes American culture in general though. Miyazaki also said that all Japanese live action films made since 1970 are garbage and that current Japanese live action directors are incompetent who don't know how to shoot interesting takes in color, he cites Kurosawa and Mizoguchi as examples of good directors from the black & white era.

But Miyazaki cited Japanese animation directors he likes: Isao Takahata, Mamoru Oshii and Hideaki Anno are the ones he respects the most. He also respects a couple of non-Japanese animators, he cited Yuri Norstein several times. I don't recall him citing any North American animator though. Miyazaki said that Disney films are technical marvels but essentially simplistic stuff without thematic or psychological depth that shows contempt for their audience. I agree almost completely. Though I wouldn't say they are technical marvels in animation if compared even to some current anime series (Moribito, K-On, Fate Zero, etc, have some pretty impressive hand drawn animation sequences that show very impressive physical realism, more than some Ghibli stuff even).

Miyazaki has extremely refined tastes. He respects only the highest masterpieces and most impressive works in their respective mediums. In live action film he respects the likes of Tarkovsky, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa and Yamanaka. In animation he respects people like Norstein, Anno, Takahata and Oshii.

[EDIT: Please use the Edit button, next time, instead of triple-posting. -TK]
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Fronzel



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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 1:31 am Reply with quote
Jose Cruz wrote:
Miyazaki also said that Hollywood movies are manipulate garbage and that even Apocalypse Now is garbage (a movie about "not understanding", he said, due to the US's lack's of understanding of defeat in war, since they couldn't win that war and think of war as a videogame). He later said he dislikes American culture in general though. Miyazaki also said that all Japanese live action films made since 1970 are garbage and that current Japanese live action directors are incompetent who don't know how to shoot interesting takes in color, he cites Kurosawa and Mizoguchi as examples of good directors from the black & white era.

Furthermore, get off his lawn.
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Akane the Catgirl



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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 2:10 am Reply with quote
So, um I haven't posted in a while. But I just came here to tell about my own experience with Princess Mononoke. So here it goes:

I saw this film before Nausicaa. I watched a video of Hope Chapman reviewing and thought to myself "Gee, sounds like a pretty good movie". To be honest, it takes about two to three viewings to really get into the film. At least, that's how it went for me. I do love this movie a lot, and I do think it deserves a lot of the praise that most critics give it.

Particularly, I would like to mention the antagonist, Lady Eboshi. Yes, Ashitaka and San are also fairly well written, but I happen to like Eboshi the most. In my opinion, she's probably one of the best anti-villains in animated film history I've seen. Yes, she's willing to destroy a forest, and the story portrays it as Not Okay. Still, her goals are ultimately benevolent and even selfless. She's charming and graceful, a Yamato Nadeshiko with a kind heart and a will of iron (not like the watered-down doormats you see in anime harems). Overall, my favorite character from the film. Moral ambiguity ho~

I should also mention that Neil Gaiman wrote the script for the English dub, so there's that. Wink
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