A brilliant work of love, fantasy, and adult animation.

Rating: Null/10 (21 May 2008)

Can an animated film get any better? The only other Japanese animated films I can think of that I love just as much as this are GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES, AKIRA, SPIRITED AWAY, and GHOST IN THE SHELL. PRINCESS MONONOKE is perfection. The film is simply flawless in it's storytelling, it's animation, it's characters, and it's emotion. The film is about a boy who is cursed with a sickness that will kill him but, at the same time, gives him superhuman abilities. He ventures out of his hometown to find a cure. In the process of finding a cure, he is caught in the middle of a war between animals and humans and gets involved by the leader of the animals, a human female named Princess Mononoke. The film is an epic work of fantasy. Out of all the Fantasy films I've seen in my time, this is probably my favorite. There is so much imagination at work here with the characters and the action. At times things become overwhelming due to the epic scale and the emotion evoked in the storyline and the action. Some of the images in this film are so strange and indescribable that I can easily recommend it on the note that there are sights that you will never see anywhere else, but I don't want to make it sound like a freak show. What makes the film's bizarre images even greater is how the strength of the animation alone can carry it along with the plot in such a elegant and masterful way. It's wondrous when a person can create such images full of beauty and bizarre otherworldliness. I always love when filmmakers do that. The fact that this is animated allows these images to absorb the viewer in much simpler and extraordinary ways. At times the film is so astonishing in how it's able to carry this stuff that it is emotional. I love the film because it reminds me that the human race is capable of creating the most astonishing things. I love the human race, and it's because of films like these.