promises. This is truly an adult movie but my children, ages 12 to 15 all loved it and talked about it for days later. Even my wife who holds a strong prejudice against Japanese animation enjoyed this movie.Go and see this movie. You won't be disappointed.

such as this. You'd have to see it a dozen times to appreciate this film fully. Aside from it being the most beautiful film I've ever seen, it also has an enormously powerful script. The characters are some of the the most well rounded in all film. Ashitaka especially, the main character of the film, is so nuanced that he has become in my mind one of the great characters in film, up there with Charles Foster Kane and Jake LaMotta. I would compare him to Freder, the main character of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. His role in the film is a mediator between the forces of humans and the gods of nature. Both sides comment several times that Ashitaka must be on the other side, when he is trying desperately to convince everyone that there are no sides. Peace is the way. There is a little to be desired in the American voice talent. Claire Daines was certainly a wrong choice for San Princess Mononoke , and Billy Bob Thornton just could not hide his southern accent, which made the character of Jigo seem more comical than he was probably supposed to be. Gillian Anderson's voice clashed with her character, the wolf god Moro, a bit. It hardly affected my passion. The film was so spectacular and beautiful that James Earl Jones could have voiced San and it would have detracted little. Definitely, though, I'm praying that they release the DVD with subtitle options. Anyway, Princess Mononoke is the best film of 1999, the best film of the 1990's, and, in my personal top ten list, no lower than #5, but closer to #2. 12 hours later and my heart is still beating with the power of Princess Mononoke! America: SEE IT!

cure himself and incidentally, as he will learn, to try to restore balance. But this is not a simplistic tale, he finds there are other characters in play, and there is good and evil in everyone, and no easy balance. The Princess Hime of the story is a mysterious human who has been raised by wolves which are themselves powerful forest gods, a little reminiscent of the Amerindian Coyote myth , who becomes both his ally and his enemy. The story is not easy to understand. It has many Japanese mythic elements but even then, it is a work of Miyazake's unique imagination, and is not intended to be simple or to have a clean resolution.The animation is spectacular, and unusual, with new elements even for Miyazake and marks a new departure for style which you can see continued in his next film, Sen to Chihiro - more nature, more wild, more jamming on elements from Japanese myth and folklore. And, continuing the trend to be more personal, concerned with ethics and character, and less sci-fi. There are at least half a dozen well developed characters threaded through the story, and their animation is wonderful in displaying subtle character.The original Japanese soundtrack has some amazing singing and draws upon some of the best talent available for voices - in Japan, Miyazake is universally known and this was a masterpiece carefully crafted. Japanese television documented a lot of the production. The English translation drew on some good talent but they seem not to have "gotten it" quite so intensely as the Japanese crew.If you haven't seen Miyazake, give it a try but maybe look at Sen to Chihiro first, or even Laputa or Kiki's Delivery Service, for easier and lighter introduction to his work . Some say he is the Japanese Disney, but I don't like that. His work has a depth and sophistication that goes beyond Disney cute. There is no other animation like it. This is truly an adult work: children might like some of the visuals, but I doubt that many kids below teen age will have any idea what it is all about, and even adults will get more out of this each time you see it again.

against humans.I think Princess Mononoke was even better than Spirited Away. It outclasses its Hollywood-synonym, Lord Of The Rings. The plot is very good. The soundtrack is amazing, it's a shame that the Academy Award didn't notice it. The animation is beautiful, especially the characters. The only thing i can complain about is the English dubbing. Billy Crudup does a splendid job as the voice of Ashitaka, but they could really have chosen a better alternative than Billy Bob Thornton as Jigo.Overall i give this movie 9 out of 10.

the end there are no villains. There are antagonists and protagonists, but everyone is genuinely, sincerely doing what she or he thinks is the best thing. This is a great, artistic, true expression of how things usually are. A great lesson.

of nature.Despite its clear point, Princess Mononoke does not stray into obvious lines of good and evil or try to drop the message on the viewer like an anvil. Rather, it portrays both sides of the conflict in a balanced manner, showing the good and the bad and depicting the harm brought by hate on both sides. Perhaps the only major flaw I can see is that Miyazaki's romanticized monarchism, which leads him to again bring out the decidedly clichéd heroic warrior-prince/princess.

be the highly acclaimed Hayao Miyazaki. After about ten minutes of dwelling on the follies and there are, in my opinion, many of the "anime" style of art, I became enthralled with the quickly unfolding plot and the subsequently dire fate bestowed upon Ashitaka, the protagonist of the film. After Ashitaka leaves his village to search for a treatment to remedy his affliction, I no longer cared that this was an animated feature; I was on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next. I no longer disliked that every character had abnormally large eyes though not over-sized to the point of utter absurdity or that the English overdubbing was a little choppy. In fact, I even began to enjoy the accomplished yet subtle computer generated effects interspersed throughout. By the last half hour I was hooked to the screen, eagerly awaiting the conclusion I wanted so badly to end the bitter conflict of the plot. By the end, I realized that this movie carried a powerful moral with it: man's continuous tampering with nature brings about as much savagery as it does progress, as much suffering as it does good, and that a sound compromise must be struck between nature and civilization. I do not harbor any negative feelings towards those who rated this movie poorly, as I used to be one of those people. All I have to say to them is this: look at a both the visual and symbolic attributes of a movie before rating it harshly. If, after observing all these features and idiosyncrasies, you still wholeheartedly hate the film, then by all means give it a one. After all, what would the world be like if we were all did not criticize or question our surroundings?

god and spirits called Kodamas .This wonderful film is plenty of fantasy , adventures, drama, spectacular combats and with ecological message . The picture is narrated with sensibility and sense of wonder and quite entertaining, though isn't apt for small kids but contains graphic violence . It's a deep critical about nature exploiting and killing the forests for the encroaching civilization represented by an iron mining town that cause a damage environment . This stunning film, though a bit too long, converted the first of any kind to gross over the box office in Japan and around the world. The motion picture was splendidly realized by Hayao Miyazaki , he personally corrected or redrew more than 80,000 of the film's 144,000 animation cels . Being accompanied by sensitive music score composed by his usual musician , Joe Hisaishi. Miyazaki also directed other excellent cartoon movies as ¨Howl's moving castle¨ , ¨Chihiro¨ , ¨Porco Rosso¨ and ¨My neighbour Tororo¨ . Rating : Sensational and fantastic , it's a masterpiece cartoon movie.

refined sense of humour in a couple of places. I recommend it.