Wonderful!

Rating: 10/10 (16 March 2002)

Wow, Mononoke-hime is really one of the best movies I have ever seen, chronicling the fierce protection the forest spirits and two humans have of a beautiful old forest from iron workers in 9th-century Japan.
The great wolf-god Moro and her human daughter, San, have discovered the plans of Lady Eboshi and her Iron Town to cut down the trees and destroy their mountain habitat for the iron buried underneath. Not standing for it, they enlist the hekp of all the forest spirits to protect Shishi gami, the very heart of the mountain. Aided also by a wayward prince named Ashitaka, they try to topple Eboshi's plan.
At first glance, this would be any other good/evil combat, but Miyazaki has really fleshed out the characters, and really there are no protagonists or antagonists, only people/animals trying their best to survive. The animals will die if the forest is destroyed (duh), but the inhabitants of Iron Town cannot survive without it's only means of acquiring survival goods.
I very highly suggest you to rent this movie in either subbed or dubbed format. The dub is quite good for any American theatrical-release foreign language film, and Billy Crudup and Gillian Anderson did wonderful work as Ashitaka and Moro, respectively.