At least anime fans will appreciate it.

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2000)

My first experiences of Japanese culture dates back to around 1987. My Father, who speaks some Japanese, thought that it would be a good idea for he and I to take a Japanese language class. He also thought investing in the Macheezmo Mouse chain of restaurants was sound financial advice. At the end of the six week accelerated course I could only utter the phrase `ima nanji des ka,' or `what time is it now?' Every other phrase I retained would only come out in stutters-like Porky Pig in need of subtitles. Because of this harrowing experience, I endured years of Japanophobia which would limit my exposure to anime (Japanimation) to reruns of the 1967 cartoon series `Speed Racer.' Last week, however, when I was given the opportunity to review the Japanese import `Princess Mononoke,' I thought that it would be a good opportunity to see what I was missing all these years, and on a big screen, no less.
The film begins at a quick pace with the invasion of a small village by a Boar God turned Tatari-Gami (Cursing God). A young prince named Ashitake protects his people, but in the process is cursed to a slow but certain death by the giant boar. He travels west in an `Odyssey' type journey in search of a possible cure from a Shishi-Gami (Deer-God). He comes across a village of iron miners where an ongoing battle between the animal gods of the forest and the miners is occurring. Here is where Princess Mononoke is introduced. She is a human outcast raised by the Wolf God. The other side of the conflict, the iron miners, is led by Lady Eboshi who has created a safe haven for and provided employment for women and lepers, but is destroying the surrounding forest. Other players in the battle is a band of men, of whom the character Jigo is involved, who are after the head of the Deer God in a quest to gain immortality.
While the `man vs. nature' theme is timeless and intriguing, the strong point of Princess Mononoke is the animation. Imagine a painting with so much detail in the background that it takes five to ten minutes to fully view and appreciate it. This is how nearly each of the 144,000 hand-drawn cels and computer-generated images can be described. There is so much going on, the screen is so busy with detail, that my thumb involuntarily began to twitch towards a nonexistent remote control in order to rewind the film and pay more attention to the goings on aside from the characters in the foreground.
One of the disappointments of Princess Mononoke is what I found to be a lack of character development. The goodbye scene between Ashitaka and his sister didn't bring the slightest bit of sadness out of me that I believe it was supposed to because I didn't know enough about either character to give a damn. The English screenplay by Neil Gaiman is good, but as voice director Jack Fletcher pointed out when he spoke to the preview audience at Lloyd Cinemas, Japanese animation doesn't rely so much on mouth synchronization and, consequently, American audiences may subconsciously lose involvement in the film. Princess Mononoke starts off fast, but the rest of the film is slow and can at some points even slower. Fletcher said that during the final editing of the film that executives at Mirimax wanted to cut about a half hour out of the film before its release, but members of the artistic side of the project wanted to leave the film intact, which is how it was released. The result is a film that is two hours and fifteen minutes long that contains about ninety minutes of plot. The film is rated PG-13 for images of violence and gore; Ashitake's arrows manage to delimb and decapitate every foe that they hit, and this is shown in the same chilling detail that is seen throughout the film. This may make the film seem that it is unsuitable for children, but there is nothing here that they aren't seeing in their video games. My first impression, though, is that this is a picture that is too gory for little kids, too slow for teenagers, and will most likely be truly appreciated by current anime fans.