A Film by Hayao Miyazaki

Fun fact – the very first DVDs that I ever purchased were copies of Princess Mononoke, Goldeneye 007, and Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (this was sometime in 2000). I purchased Princess Mononoke on a total whim, because, at that time I was unfamiliar with Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki as noteworthy entities. I honestly don’t even remember why I settled on that DVD in particular, but it could have been because it was on the new release wall or something. Who would have thought that it was the very first step I took on the path of my adoration of the company and every film they have ever produced. It’s because of this, that 1997’s Princess Mononoke holds a special place in my heart and I always enjoy watching it. It has been a while since my last viewing, so there were things in this film that felt new to me, and for that I was very excited to see it included with Ghibli Fest 2023, giving me an opportunity to see it on the big screen.

As with any of these events in the series, the showing was immediately followed by a clip of a documentary series called Ten Years with Hayao Miyazaki, which originally aired on the Japanese television station, NHK, in 2019. They now have the rights to this, so I hope to see it in full one of these days.

“Before it ever arrived in the U.S., this epic, animated 1997 fantasy had already made history as the top-grossing domestic feature ever released in Japan. Set in medieval Japan, Miyazaki’s original story envisions a struggle between nature and man. The march of technology, embodied in the dark iron forges of the ambitious Tatara clan, threatens the natural forces explicit in the benevolent Great God of the Forest and the wide-eyed, spectral spirits he protects.

When Ashitaka, a young warrior from a remote, and endangered, village clan, kills a ravenous, boar-like monster, he discovers the beast is in fact an infectious “demon god,” transformed by human anger. Ashitaka’s quest to solve the beast’s fatal curse brings him into the midst of human political intrigues as well as the more crucial battle between man and nature.”

As always, I watched this screening in English, and you might be shocked to know that this is one of the few Ghibli/Disney dubs I am not a big fan of. I need to watch this again at some point in Japanese, but the English track has always seemed somewhat dull to me, likely due to this being one of the first dubs Disney did with anything by Miyazaki. I remember hating the dub for various reasons when I was younger, but have apparently softened up a bit because I just had a few gripes here and there. For those on the fence, I will say it is leagues above most dubs from the 1980’s and is fully watchable, there’s just not much emotion from a number of actors.

The English cast is as follows: Ashitaka (Billy Crudup), Jigo (Billy Bob Thornton), Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver), Gonza (John DiMaggio), San (Claire Danes), Kohroku (John DeMita), Toki (Jada Pinkett Smith), Moro (Gillian Anderson) and Okkoto (Keith David).

Set in the mystical world of ancient Japan, Princess Mononoke weaves an intricate tale that explores the delicate balance between nature and humanity. This is a common theme in nearly every Hayao Miyazaki film, with this one taking a stand against people destroying nature simply for the sake of progress. As with any of these, the themes and moral dilemmas depicted in the movie are subtle and tastefully done, and never veer too far into the realm of being preachy or heavy-handed. As with any form of speculative fiction, using your setting to address a modern problem is commonplace, but Miyazaki handles it far better than most.

At its core, the film revolves around Ashitaka, a young prince cursed by a deadly demon, and his fateful journey to find a cure and understand the true nature of the conflict that plagues the land. His path soon intersects with San, the fearless and fierce warrior dubbed “Princess Mononoke”, (Princess of the Spirits), raised by wolves and a fierce protector of the forest. As Ashitaka navigates a world filled with warring factions – including Lady Eboshi and her industrial settlement, and the mystical spirits of the forest led by the enigmatic Forest Spirit – he discovers that no one is truly innocent in this enthralling and morally complex narrative. It’s good to see a film with such a complex story, not merely a tale of “good guys” vs “bad guys”, we see so often.

Lady Eboshi is an especially interesting foil to Ashitaka in that I would not consider her a villain in most ways. if anything, the “villain” of the film is the unseen Japanese Emperor that is making wild calls like “let’s kill the forest spirit” from behind the scenes. His army of samurai are not exactly painted in a good way, and are on the wrong side of everything here. Lady Eboshi is seen to have employed a number of former sex-workers in manufacturing jobs and has promoted equality among her people when the rest of Japan exists on a purely male-dominated hierarchical power structure. She has even given a bit of normalcy to the city’s lepers, which as we know are a poor, often neglected, group of people that are usually left to die outside of the city walls due to fears over their disease spreading.

Beyond its engaging narrative, Princess Mononoke boasts the same unparalleled visuals that Studio Ghibli is known for. Even being 25+ years old, the film looks just as good, if not better than a lot of modern anime. That’s saying something, because this pre-dates the common use of computer-scanned animation by a few years and (as far as I know) was still hand painted onto plastic cels. Action scenes are exciting and almost peer back into the more adventurous films that Miyazaki did in his past, before he shifted a bit to films about rural Japan.

The soundtrack for Princess Mononoke is once again a masterpiece from longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi. Hisaishi has produced the music for (as far as I know) every Miyazaki film aside from Castle of Cagliostro. It’s one of those team-ups that will go down in terms of legendary pairings such as Steven Spielberg and John Williams, Alfred Hitchcock & Bernard Herrmann, or Tim Burton & Danny Elfman. I cannot wait to eventually see 2023’s The Boy and the Heron in theaters sometime this year, as I can guarantee both men will hit it out of the park.

While this observation is anecdotal at best, it seemed as if this was one of the more successful showings of this series so far. My home theater was sold out for the English-dubbed showings over the weekend, and I had to drive 45 minutes to another theater as a result. For a movie that historically was said to “not do well” in Disney’s eyes (imagine if they actually released it in more than a few theaters, and didn’t market it in stupid ways), it sure has some status as a film people will flock to now.

We almost certainly have Harvey Weinstein to blame for any previous underperformance the film had considering he wanted to hack the film apart as this article from Collider lays out:

“Miyazaki would join that list [of film makers at odds with Weinstein] when Weinstein got a hold of Princess Mononoke. According to Ghibli liaison Steve Alpert, Weinstein wanted to trim the movie from 135 minutes to 90 minutes, but Miyazaki refused. This sent Weinstein into a spiral threatening that Alpert would never work in the entertainment industry again (but with more four-letter words.) Miyazaki was no stranger to this though, as he had already had one film botched upon release in America.”

Once again, I was very happy to be able to see this on a big screen for the first time in my life. Aside from my general apathy towards the English dub of the film, everything else was pretty awesome in pretty much every way. Princess Mononoke is a great film that is as good today as it was in 1997, and shows that a studio can make a film about environmentalism without getting preachy and political about it. If you have not seen Princess Mononoke, you are truly missing out. It is definitely a classic in the genre.

In a few weeks, I will be seeing Porco Rosso and The Wind Rises, so stay tuned for those reviews!