Not for stupid people; SKIP THE ENGLISH VERSION

Rating: Null/10 (10 May 2001)

Boy, a lot of people don't seem to get this film! It's not a kids' film, despite having been reinterpreted as such by the folks responsible for the English-language version. And it's not just some dumb quasi-medieval fantasy with an Oriental twist. It's a very intelligent, deeply humanistic examination of the problem of Humans vs. Nature, of the reasons why we pillage the natural world. Lady Eboshi, the wonderfully ambiguous villainess, is ultimately ravaging the land for the sake of the lepers and whores and outcasts--she truly wants to enrich and empower all of humanity, but at what price??!
For a REAL experience of a very intelligent foreign film, this is what I recommend, get the DVD version (first, get a DVD player if you don't have one), then FORGET ALL ABOUT THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE VERSION. Instead, use the set-up options to listen to the original Japanese version (it doesn't matter if you don't understand Japanese--the point is to escape the English-language dialog, as well as enjoy the original sounds), and then enable the subtitles--NOT the closed caption subtitles (which are just a transcription of the American dialog), but the "literal translation" subtitles, which will give you a better idea of the depth and intelligence of the original Japanese script.
That being said, I can't say this is a truly great film. It got kind of tedious in spots, even during the battle scenes, and several of the main characters were rather shallow and uninteresting. But I give it an A+++ for effort, and for having its heart in the right place, and for teaching the moral and practical lesson that you can't blame all the evil in the world on clear-cut VILLAINS, but rather, we all have a responsibility for making sure our collective desires and cross-purposes don't get out of hand and muck up the world.
As for the Night Walker, I don't think he was supposed to be a destroyer except when he was deprived of his head. In his death-agony, he threatened to take the whole world with him, just as we will all go down if we destroy the rainforests and ecosystem and biodiversity. I don't think he was supposed to be the Supreme Being, either. He was just a symbol of all of Nature--both nurturing and dangerous, and absolutely essential for our well-being and the well-being of our planet.