Japanese anime: bigger, longer and uncut

Rating: 5/10 (30 April 2005)

Generally I am a real fan of animated films and since Hayao Miyazaki's films seem to be of very high quality I recently felt to give one of his films a try despite not being too keen on Asian anime. The only film I really liked was Vampire Hunter D to be honest and I can assure you that I've seen my share of Manga 'classics' (Akira and Ghost in the shell). I had a feeling though that Miyazaki's films would be more mainstream Hollywood style, since he has become something of a trade name since making this film and the academy award winning Spirited Away. After seeing this film, I was somewhat disappointed. Despite the fact that the film had some of the makings of a great adventure film, I just could not get used to the many fantasy; god/demon elements. From the start I felt that the films core the film had a dangerous equilibrium, which it managed to maintain during the first hour. The first hour was pretty exciting and interesting but in the second hour the weight on the 'boring' scale just got bigger and bigger. It was not as if Miyazaki did a bad job directing, but I felt that he put too much weight on the whole moral/mystical part of the film where more emphasis on the action would have made the film tighter. Maybe though it wasn't the emphasis alone, I also felt that some of the scenes were excruciatingly long. Or maybe it is safe to say that I'm not into the whole Asian 'spirit thing'. I mean I didn't like The Ring or Ju-On one bit and I didn't care much for this one either. The only thing I actually can appreciate in Asian (specifically Japanese) films is the amount of violence they use and the way in which it is often comic. There were a couple of instances in this film as well where I felt the violence was so over the top that it became funny. Too bad that isn't enough to keep a film interesting for 128 minutes. Miyazaki should have kept this one standard Disney-length (with a maximum of 85 minutes).
5,25 out of 10
post scriptum: the English subs were really bad, cause last time I checked 'arigato' meant "Thank you." and not "Good luck."