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Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime 1997) is a Japanese animated film by
Miyazaki Hayao. It is set in medieval Japan, and centres on the struggle
between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who need its
resources, as seen by the outsider Ashitaka.
Prince Ashitaka saves his village from a cursed boar-god but is cursed in
the process. As the curse spreads, he has a short amount of time to find a
cure for the curse before it kills him. He discovers the curse originated
from a bullet shot from a hand cannon made in Irontown. There lady Eboshi is
fighting a war against the spirits of the forest so she can extract its
resources for her people. Tribes of intelligent boars, gorillas, and wolves
and San (the mononoke princess of the title), who was raised by the wolves,
defend the forest. Ashitaka tries to mediate and falls in love with San in
the process.
The film was massively successful in Japan and with both anime fans and "arthouse"
moviegoers in English-speaking countries. In those countries, it was widely
interpreted as a film about the environment, told in the form of Japanese
mythology. It is interesting to note that Disney chose to put a lot of money
into creating the English dub of the movie with famours actors and
actresses, yet when they released it in theatres, there was little or no
advertising and they gave it a very limited release where it was only in a
few theatres and only for a very short time. Many anime fans didn't find out
about it until it was too late. Disney later complained about the fact that
it didn't do so well since apparently they expected that even under those
conditions it would do as well in America as it did in Japan. Since then,
the DVD sales have done far better because they do not have a limited
availability.
The US and UK DVD releases have both the English and Japanese
soundtracks, and the US release additionally includes two different sets of
English subtitles (the dialogue used in the dub and a "literal
translation"). The English dub (which was taken from a literal translation
into "words that people can say" by Neil Gaiman) simplifies many aspects of
the film, and so many English-speaking fans of the film prefer to watch in
Japanese with the "literal translation" subtitles.
Credits
- Direction, Original Story & Screenplay: Miyazaki Hayao
- Music: Joe Hisaishi
- Production: Studio Ghibli
- Executive Producers: Ujiie Seiichiro & Narita Yutaka
- Producer: Suzuki Toshio
Voice Actors
- Yôji Matsuda - Ashitaka
- Yuriko Ishida - San
- Akihiro Miwa - Moro
- Yûko Tanaka - Lady Eboshi
- Kaoru Kobayashi - Jiko Bou
Miramax English Dub Voice Actors
- Billy Crudup - Ashitaka
- Claire Danes - San
- Gillian Anderson - Moro
- Minnie Driver - Lady Eboshi
- Billy Bob Thornton - Jigo
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