Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 1997 – Japan – Cert. PG – 134m
*****
Reviewed for What’s On in London when the film appeared in the Barbican’s 2001 Studio Ghibli season. It never got a proper theatrical release in the UK. The review presents a fascinating snapshot of the cinema landscape in the UK from the time when, outside of anime fandom, film journalists, and industry insiders, Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki were largely unknown.
Film critics are occasionally privileged to see incredible films that, for one reason or another, never receive proper UK release. The Barbican is currently hosting a season of 11 films by Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli (Jib-Lee), an animation company as familiar in Japan as Disney is here, that fall into exactly this category. They include Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki’s legendary masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro (1988) and his imaginative fantasy epic Princess Mononoke (1997). Both took the Japanese box office by storm, the latter topping $150m putting it second only to Titanic (James Cameron, 1997). Miyazaki’s latest Spirited Away (2001) has topped the Japanese box office for weeks. Ghibli signed a deal in 1996 to distribute their films worldwide through Disney – but it’s been a long wait.
Mononoke’s fourteenth century plot concerns a prince fatally infected in combat with a demon (a giant boar covered with worms). He finds himself in woodlands threatened with deforestation by industrialist Lady Eboshi but guarded by the eponymous, wolf-riding Princess and her not at all cute animal companions. Not exactly your usual simple Disney storyline, but highly effective for perhaps that very reason. An apocalyptic countryside finale anticipates the Stravinsky’s Firebird sequence (Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi) from Disney’s Fantasia 2000 (1999).
On separate occasions (check listings), the Barbican is showing both the dubbed Mononoke prepared by Disney for US release and the considerably more effective subtitled version with the original Japanese voices and soundtrack. It’s great that it’s on at the Barbican, but Disney’s throwaway UK release nevertheless represents a travesty – particularly ironic considering Disney’s heavily hyped Atlantis (Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, 2001) has been accused of plagiarising Miyazaki-created Japanese TV series Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (Hideaki Anno, 1990-91).
Trailer (subtitled):
Trailer (dubbed):