A fantasy fix you simply won't get any other way

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2009)

No one tells a more imaginative, original story than Hayao Miyazaki. While fantasy is a genre with limitless potential, there's still nothing like one of Miyazaki's animated fairy tales and "Princess Mononoke" is one his finest.
The story follows a young warrior named Ashitaka who gets bitten and cursed by some sort of forest demon. The wound is surely fatal unless he embarks on a journey to find a cure. In his travels, he stumbles across a town of iron miners who are seemingly at war with wild animals, namely a pack of wolves and their princess, San. Ashitaka must try to play peacemaker as the forest's deer god--who both sides seek out for different reasons--might be his only means of a cure.
The animation that brings a world of fantasy but also of feudal Japan to life is excellent. So many of the creatures are transparent, the large demons and gods are drawn of individual organism-like things that all move on their own while also making up a whole. The work must have taken forever. The nature backgrounds are also beautifully drawn. While most of the work and figures are in traditional anime style, the magical creatures will amaze you and the action is particularly well-directed to enhance the visual experience.
"Princess Mononoke" is a film for those who either have an appreciation of anime or more simply, an appreciation for imagination. Miyazaki's deer god sweeping through the land, his forest demons consuming people, Ashitaka's living scar, etc. are all things that simply inspire the imagination in everyone.
While the film leaves its biggest impression as just a one-of-a-kind fairytale, there is some definite effort made to show that this battle between the humans and the wild animals is representative of man's struggle with nature. It is a fantastical dramatization of how we often upset the balance and harmony between the two. For people who have been exposed to nothing but Western film with Western ideas, this is quite a refreshing theme rooted in Buddhist philosophy and other Eastern religions, but certainly one all cultures can understand.