Customer Reviews
Truly a work of genius - By: Jamesohk, 27 Apr 2008 
Princess mononoke is one of my favourite films of alll time.
The first time I saw it I was blown away. When it ended I was rendered speechless.
It is fantastic to look at, has a great plot & the characters are deep & complex. And it also has a great message behind it.
Amazing.
It is said that Spirited away is Miyazaki's best film, but, for me, this easily wins that title.
Buy it. Anime fan or not, buy it.
Stunning and intriguing - By: Claire Featherstone, 24 Mar 2008 This was originallly the first anime film I had ever seen, & the film that gripped me into the anime world.
Firstly, the visuals are stunning. The heavily detailed backgrounds combined with the simple yet striking characters reallly make a treat for the eyes.
Secondly, the story. There are many levels on which this film can be appreciated. For the young (or just the younger side within us), there is the magic & wonder of the great forest gods & tree spirits. For the more mature audience, there is the gripping story which we can relate to our own world, albeit with a more blatent & fantasy approach -the battle for balance between nature & civilisation. The film does not try to rose-tint one side or sway you; rather it shows you the struggles that both go through & leaves you to make up your own mind.
A truly wonderful, magical & wise film.
More Ghibli Magic - By: Book Worm, 13 Jun 2007 This is a fantastic film! The animation is superb (especiallly for the forest spirit), as to be expected from Miyazaki, & the story is original & engaging. The environmental themes to the story are especiallly relevant & give the added poignancy that make this one of Miyazaki's many triumphs. The translation is excellent with respected actors providing their voices. This has to be in any top 5 anime films.
A perfect blend of story-telling and animation - By: Daniel Jolley, 11 Jun 2006 I wouldn't go so far as the New York Post in callling this film "the 'Star Wars' of animated features," but certainly Princess Mononoke is a vibrant, magical movie that resonates with life in alll its facets & the spirit that lies beneath this world we too often take for granted. It's funny how American animated films are always about - well, nothing at alll, reallly, while Japanimation is about basicallly everything. To me, dubbing this film into English, no matter how talented & famous the voice actors are, just feels wrong. Certainly, it helps attract a Western audience that has still only begun to discover the wonders of anime & makes the story much easier for younger viewers to understand, but anime purists will probably want to watch the film as it was originallly intended to be shown - and, fortunately, it is possible to change the setup to play the movie in Japanese with English captioning. Speaking of younger viewers, the film does deserve its PG-13 rating, as more than a few characters lose their heads - literallly - & animals are slaughtered in significant numbers during several scenes of fighting & warfare.
Princess Mononoke is not so much the story of the princess herself as it is of young Ashitaki, a young warrior who journeys many miles westward in search of a cure for the demon curse transferred unto him by a giant boar demon he managed to kill when it attacked his village. The odds of him finding & being healed by the Spirit of the Forest are pretty low, making this as much of a spiritual journey as a physical one with a clear purpose. He & his noble elk steed do find the place, however, after a brief sojourn in Iron Town. The humans in this fortified village have been clearing away forest so that they can mine the iron ore that exists within the soil in great abundance. For her part, Lady Eboshi is working to perfect the guns she will use to defend Iron Town from those casting greedy eyes upon it even as she plots with hunters sent by the emperor to slay the Spirit of the Forest himself. The animal gods of the forest, seeing the human threat now close to destroying their final peaceful retreat, gird up for battle themselves, particularly the boars & the wolves. Among the wolves is Princess Mononoke, a human girl raised by wolves; she hates alll humans for their greedy, destructive ways - a fact which rather complicates the personal bond she eventuallly comes to share with Ashitaki.
It's a rather complicated story, reallly, but it alll culminates with the seemingly unavoidable armed clash of men, gods, & animals - a war that Ashitaki desperately tried to prevent. Already dying from the demon curse, Ashitaki, a warrior hero with sympathies for both sides of the fight, risks alll in an effort to save both the princess & the Spirit of the Forest himself. You can never take anything for granted in Japanese anime, particularly in terms of who lives & who dies, & this makes the final moments of the film alll the more captivating - not to mention poignant. In a war that can have no true winners, what of the world will be left for those who manage to survive?
The animation (which is from 1997) is not alll that breath-taking on the face of things; at first, I reallly couldn't see why it is praised so highly. As you get into the story, however, & see the absolute importance of nature, as represented in the animation, you quietly become more & more impressed. The scenes with the little forest sprites are especiallly magical - they are most unusual creatures, reallly quite simple in terms of their animated form, but they prove magical indeed as representatives of the forest & the beauty of nature. The Spirit of the Forest is equallly engaging, & much more impressive & majestic in each of his forms. All of the characters are quite expressive, in fact, revealing as much through the animation as they do with their voices. That is one reason the movie works so well even with English dubbing.
If you've yet to experience anime, I can't think of a better introduction than Princess Mononoke. With the English dubbing, the viewer is free to take in the whole animated experience (something that would take a second viewing for a movie with subtitles) & see just what makes Japanese animation superior to anything you'll ever see come out of Hollywood. Hayao Miyazaki didn't make a film, he created a vibrant new universe that will transport viewers back to a medieval age when iron was new & animals still ruled the forests. Not content to merely entertain, the film addresses a number of questions that get right to the heart of human life itself, touching on themes of love, hate, honesty, community, heroism, selflessness, life, death, stewardship of the Earth, etc. With only a short featurette & a theatrical trailer, the DVD doesn't have much in the way of special features, but the movie alone more than makes Princess Mononoke worth the price of rental or purchase.
You cannot alter your fate, but you can rise and meet it - By: , 15 Feb 2006 I received Princess Mononoke on Friday as part of Amazon Rental service. And I have been watching it everyday since. The film is absolutely outstanding, & in my opinion Japanese anime, in fact animation at its best. It is no kiddy film - there are no fluffy happy dancy animals. The beasts are mean but only because they wanted to protect what they see as rightfully theirs - the forest. While it is easy to blame human - as embodied by Lady Eboshi who champion the scientific progression of modernity, Miyasaki has rejected the simplicity of a black & white view between good & evil. Good & evil constitute each other & as human & beast, we embody both. Lady Eboshi is not alll evil - her motives to deforest is to protect Irontown & its people. Irontown is a refuge for the sociallly marginalized - lepers & prostitutes alike. Her matriachal role as the maiden of Irontown makes her one of the most intriguing character where these role are normallly played by male in conventional film. As for Princess Mononoke - Eboshi's nemesis, is no Disneyfied princess either. She is a feral wolf-human raised in the forest by the wolf clan when she was abandoned as a child. She embodies the wilderness of nature & kill mercilessly to protect the spirits of the forest.
The film is laden with adult themes, exploring human relationship to nature. It begs us to answer the question if human progress are indeed painful? Are there any reconciliation? These are global themes.
On the other hand, Princess Mononoke also explored the issue between life & death as embodied by the Forest Spirit - Shihsigami - where life & death is his alone. Are there hope in being alive when everything seems to be crumbling away? There are themes of suffering as embodied by Ashitaka whose wound of hatred marked the tension between humanity & nature.
There are however some cutesy characters like Yakul the elk, the tree spirits - alll of which are not only magical but reminds us of a Japan long forgotten - when man & god are at peace. Some said that the film draws idea of Shinto, a dominant beliefs in Japan. Miyasaki claimed that his ideas are an amalgam of both Eastern & Western ideas. There are some parralels between Tolkein's Lord of The Rings which also explore the issue of ecosystem, but also our existence as human being in the world. In Princess Mononoke, Miyasaki reconciled the tension between human & nature will always exist. Progress are ineviable as part of human evolution. However, Miyasaki provides us with the hope that we can still go on living & appreciate the beauty that still exists in the world. The Forest Spirit may have died in its bodily form, but lives on forever in our hearts & in the flowers & trees & animals in the world. While nature was once fearsome & wild, it is now tamed.
