Not what I expected

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2012)

When the young warrior Ashitaka protects his village from a Forest-God-turned-demon, the curse that had gripped it infects him, threatening his life. For the protection of his kin and in order to revert this process, he leaves on a journey. He finds a young woman running a lead mill crafting rifles, with ambitions of rule and no care for the damage she does to nature(and he is suffering some of the consequences). And thus we get the not-so-subtle message(hint: she represents mankind). "Can't we all just get along" is the idea, but it does actually take the problem more seriously(with a mature sensibility) than other of these, such as Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, and most recently, Avatar. This also gets into the theme of anger and hate being self-destructive, not only harmful to one's surroundings. There are a lot of concepts in this, and fully comprehending and following it may require several viewings, time devoted to piecing it all together, and prior knowledge and understanding of Japanese culture. This is not for children, or even teens, but adults, setting it apart from every other Miyazaki production I've seen, which is nearly all of them. The acting is very good, and I urge you to watch this with subtitles, not dubbed. I do wonder why they did not sync up the animals, unlike the humans. The animation is excellent, with memorable designs, and mood expertly built by, among other things, the right amount(and tone, nuance) of light and dark(it also knows when and how to use sound, as well as silence). There is a bit of action, and it's intense, visually appealing and well-choreographed. Sans credits, this is 124 minutes long. The DVD comes with trailers for Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbour Totoro, Porco Rosso, Ponyo, this and Howl's Moving Castle, 2 Promos(coming to a running time of 8 minutes), 3 teasers(2 minutes put together) and 6 TV spots(totaling at 2 minutes). There is a lot of disturbing content, and, what seems somewhat gratuitous, a little violence, blood, gore and hints of sexuality. I recommend this to fans of Anime and those who want films that deal with the environment. 8/10