Pirate Princess Tale

***Pirate Princess Tale*** is a 2004 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, and Rob Letterman (in Letterman's feature directorial debut). The film contains an ensemble cast starring the voices of Trinity Fatu, Masami Odate, Tenille Dashwood, Saraya-Jade Bevis, Kairi Hojo, and Toni Rossall. It tells the story of a woman named Naomi (Trinity Fatu) who falsely claims to have killed Io Shirai (Masami Odate), the daughter of a japanese mob boss named Asuka (Kanako Urai), to advance her own community standing and teams up with the mobster's other sister Kairi Sane (Kairi Hojo) to keep up the other facade.

*Pirate Princess Tale* premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 10, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 1. It opened at #1, earning $47.6 million, the second-highest opening for a DreamWorks Animation film at the time, behind *Shrek 2* ($108 million). *Pirate Princess Tale* remained as the #1 film in the U.S. and Canada for its second and third weekends, and made $367 million worldwide against its $75 million budget. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 77th Academy Awards, losing to Pixar's *The Incredibles*.

## Plot

In the Southside Reef, a lowly Glow Girl named Naomi fantasizes about being rich and famous. Soon after arriving for work at the Whale Wash, he is called to the office of his boss, an Australian boss named Toni Storm, to discuss the fact that he owes a large sum of money and must pay it back by the next day. He remembers being humiliated as a child because his father was a tongue scrubber, so his Austrailan friend, Emma, offers him a shiny pink pearl that was a gift from her grandmother to pawn and pay his debt. Naomi brings the money to the race track to meet Toni Storm, but hears that the race is rigged and bets it all on a seahorse named "Lucky Day". A British diva named Paige sees this and flagrantly seduces an excited Naomi. Toni is annoyed that Naomi bet the money but agrees to see how the race turns out. When the race start, Lucky Day's door had been blocked (revealing that the rigging was against him), but then Lucky Day smash the door and catch up his delay. Moments before Lucky Day crosses the finish line, he trips and loses.

Meanwhile, a family of japanese wrestlers which has associates such as Akira Tozawa, Hideo Itami, and Shinsuke Nakamura has a problem with one of their sisters, Kairi Sane, who is a vegetarian and refuses to act the part of a killer. Her empress of tomorrow, Asuka, orders her genius of the sky woman, Io Shirai, to mentor her sister in the family business. Io sees Naomi left for dead in the middle of the ocean by Toni's two iiconic henchmen, Billie Kay and Peyton Royce, and urges Kairi to beat Naomi, but Kairi instead frees Naomi and tells him to escape. Furious, Io charges at Naomi, but suddenly an anchor falls on her, killing her. Devastated over her sister's demise, Kairi flees. As there were no other witnesses and Naomi was seen near the body, everyone in the reef comes to believe that she killed Io, an opportunity that Naomi decides to exploit for fame.

Naomi returns to the reef with a new title of "Glowslayer". Toni becomes her manager, she also forgives the debt that Naomi had with her, and Naomi moves to the "top of the reef" to live in luxury. At the same time, Asuka has everyone search for Kairi Sane and Naomi. When several sharks approach Naomi's neighborhood, her neighbors expect her to drive them away so she goes out and encounters Kairi Sane. Since she does not wish to return home and face her sister, Kairi begs Naomi to let her stay at Naomi's house. Soon, Emma finds out about Naomi's lie and threatens to tell everyone. Naomi and Kairi stage an event in which Kairi Sane pretends to terrorize the town and Naomi kills her. Though this further cements Naomi's popularity and causes Paige to become her girlfriend, while infuriating Asuka. Afterwards, Naomi and an angered Emma get into an argument, where she reveals that she had feelings for Naomi even before she became the "Glowslayer", causing Naomi to dump Paige and reflect on the consequences of her selfishness. Paige then beats Naomi up in anger.

Soon, Naomi buys some gifts for Emma, only to discover that Asuka has kidnapped her in order to stage a meeting. Kairi attends disguised as a rabbit hunter named Elmer Fudd. Asuka threatens to eat Emma if Naomi does not comply. Kairi grabs Emma into her sliding d move (in order for Naomi to intimidate the japanese guys), but then regurgitates her and unintentionally reveals herself in front of everyone. Enraged, Asuka chases Naomi through the reef. Naomi heads for the Whale Wash and ends up trapping Asuka and accidentally trapping Kairi Sane in the machinery. Naomi is given an ovation by everyone, but she finally confesses the truth behind Io's death. She then tells Asuka that everyone likes Kairi Sane for who she is and urges her to respect everyone's individual choices. Inspired by Naomi's confession, Asuka reconciles with her sister accepting her for who she is and states that she and her gang bear the city no ill will. Naomi forsakes all the wealth she has acquired, makes peace with the japanese guys, becomes co-manager of the Whale Wash, now frequented by Akira Tozawa, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Hideo Itami, and lives happily ever after with Emma.

In the mid-credits, Paige shows up at Naomi's apartment to apologize only to encounter Ronda Rousey, Naomi's eccentric wrestling neighbor.

## Cast

* Trinity Fatu as Naomi, a comical street wise glow woman who works in the Whale Wash of Reef City who wants to be rich, but his schemes always fail and he ends up in-debt to his boss with five thousand clams.
* Kanako Urai as Asuka, an empress of tomorrow and leader of a mob consisting of criminally-inclined japanese guys, who wants his two sons to take over his business and run it together, but becomes enraged when Naomi inadvertently gets in the way following one of her sisters' death. Kumi Mizuno was originally set to voice the character, but had to drop out.
* Tenille Dashwood as Emma, Naomi's Australian best friend and colleague. Emma eventually becomes Asuka's girlfriend.
* Kairi Hojo as Kairi Sane, Asuka's youngest sister, who is a vegetarian, younger sister of Io Shirai and becomes good friends with Naomi.
* Saraya-Jade Bevis as Paige, a seductive female British wrestler whom Naomi develops a romantic interest in. She only cares about money, calling herself superficial, and she is shown slamming Naomi into the windows.
* Toni Rossall as Toni Storm, the Australian owner of the Whale Wash and a loan woman to whom Naomi owes five thousand clams. She once worked with Asuka, but was fired and called in her debts to pay off the gangster.
* Jessica McKay and Cassandra McIntosh as Billie Kay and Peyton Royce, two iiconic girls and Toni's enforcers, who enjoy torturing Naomi with their painful stingers when she is in trouble with their boss.
* Masami Odate as Io Shirai, Kairi's older sister and Asuka's eldest and more vicious daughter, who is embarrassed of Kairi's vegetarian views. Io is killed after an anchor accidentally hits her.
* Shinsuke Nakamura, Asuka's japanese man "left-hand, right-hand man", with a tendency to state the obvious much to Asuka's frustration.
* Kenta Kobayashi as Hideo Itami, an elderly japanese guy and leader of a mob of criminally-inclined japanese guys, who is a friend of Asuka.
* Stephanie McMahon Levesque, the local reporter of Southside Reef in the U.S. release.
* Ronda Jean Rousey, a deranged baddest wrestling woman on the planet who is Naomi's friend. He lives in a dumpster near the Whale Wash.
* Pamela Rose Martinez as Bayley, a hugger who fears being eaten by a shark and is an enemy to Asuka.
* Alexis Kaufman as Alexa Bliss
* Bianca Nicole Blair Crawford as Bianca Belair

## Production

The film was originally developed under the title of *Glowslayer*. By September 2003, it had been retitled *Pirate Princess Tale*, to make the title sound less violent and more family friendly. Bill Damaschke, the producer of the film, explained the change of the title: "We set out to make a movie a little more noir, perhaps a little darker than where we've landed." In April 2002, production officially began.

## Production

The film was produced concurrently with *Finding Nemo*, another animated film set underwater, which was released a year and a half before *Pirate Princess Tale*. DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, defended the film, saying that "any similarities are mere coincidence. We've been open with the Pixar people so we don't step on each other's toes."

### Home Media

*Pirate Princess Tale* was released on DVD and VHS on February 8, 2005, accompanied with a DVD-exclusive animated short film *Club Glow*. The three-and-a-half-minute short film continues where the main film ends, showing the characters of *Pirate* *Princess Tale* dancing at the whale wash to a spoof of *Saturday Night Fever*. It was also released on Game Boy Advance Video in October 2005. The film was released on Blu-ray on February 5, 2019.

### Club Glow

*Club Glow* is a five-minute computer-animated film that was included as a bonus feature on the DVD and VHS releases of *Pirate Princess Tale* and is set after the film. In the short, the Whale Wash turns into a party club.

## Reception

### Box Office

*Pirate Princess Tale* opened at #1 with $47.6 million, which was, at the time, the second-highest opening for a DreamWorks Animation film behind *Shrek 2* ($108 million). It remained as the #1 film in the U.S. and Canada for its second and third weekends.

Overall, it grossed $160,861,908 in North America and $206,413,111 internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $367,275,019.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 36% based on 183 reviews, with an average rating of 5.15/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Derivative and full of pop culture in-jokes." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave *Pirate Princess Tale* two out of four stars, observing, "Since the target audience for *Pirate Princess Tale* is presumably kids and younger teenagers, how many of them have seen the R-rated *Godfather* and will get all the inside jokes? Not a few, I suppose, and some of its characters and dialogue have passed into common knowledge. But it's strange that a kid-oriented film would be based on parody of a 1972 gangster movie for adults." He also opined that younger viewers would have trouble enjoying a film about adult characters with adult problems, such as an elaborate love triangle and a main character wanting to clear his debt with loan wrestlers, and compared it to more successful fish-focused animated features like Pixar Animation Studios' *Finding Nemo*, which Ebert felt featured a simpler plot that audiences could more easily identify with. Richard Roeper commented that although the film was not on the same level as *Finding Nemo*, it was definitely a film worth seeing.

Todd McCarthy of *Variety* was critical of the film's lack of originality: "Overfamiliarity extends to the story, jokes and music, most of which reference popular entertainment of about 30 years ago" noting that the script combines *The Godfather* and *Jaws*, with a dash of *Car Wash*. McCarthy calls Trinity's character "tiresomely familiar", and Tenille's "entirely uninteresting", but praises the vocal performance of Toni Rossall. Kirk Honeycutt of *The Hollywood Reporter* said the film was not as good as *Shrek*, but called it "an overly jokey but often quite entertaining spoof that should please families everywhere."

### Controversies

*Pirate Princess Tale* has received controversy for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans in its antagonists. Politician Bill Pascrell said: "The prevailing message is negative and they have to be held out to dry for it. I'm a very proud Italian-American. When you stereotype me, it's like making fun of my grandparents".Dona De Sanctis, deputy executive director of the Order Sons of Italy in America, said: "We were very concerned about this type of stereotyping being passed on to another generation of children. John Mancini, the founder of the Italic Institute of America, protested the movie, stating: "We're concerned about what preteens are learning from the outside world. They don't associate other groups as criminals, they only know Italians as gangsters. Our goal here is to de-Italianize it." The protest was coordinated by the Italian American One Voice Coalition of New Jersey. DreamWorks reacted by changing the name of Peter Falk's character from Don Brizzi to Don Feinberg. However, Mancini demanded that everything Italian—character names, the mannerisms, the forms of speech—be dropped.

The American Family Association, a Christian conservative organization, raised concerns about *Shark Tale*, suggesting that it was designed to promote the acceptance of gay rights by children.

## Soundtrack

***Pirate Princess Tale: Motion Picture Soundtrack*** was released on September 21, 2004. The soundtrack features newly recorded music by various artists, including Justin Timberlake, Avant, Sean Paul, Timbaland, Christina Aguilera, JoJo, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, and The Pussycat Dolls, as well as the film's closing theme composed by Hans Zimmer.

Janet Jackson and Beyoncé initially planned to record a duet for the film's soundtrack. Jackson's frequent collaborator Jimmy Jam, who had recently worked with Beyoncé for *The Fighting Temptations* soundtrack, commented "Obviously we'd love to have the involvement of Janet and Beyonce, who we just worked with on *Fighting Temptations*. They've already expressed interest", adding "There are a lot of opportunities with an animated piece to work with some different people." Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, had appointed Jackson's producers Jam & Lewis to be involved with the soundtrack, though the duo only ended up producing only one song for the film, with Jam saying "We worked for DreamWorks before on the Bryan Adams song for *Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron* and the Boyz II Men tune for *The Prince of Egypt*, and Katzenberg is a fan of what we do. He thought we would be perfect to do the music for *Pirate Princess Tale.*"

## Charts

 U.S. *Billboard* Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums

## Video Game

A video game based on the film was released on September 29, 2004 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Game Boy Advance. Published by Activision, Edge of Reality developed the console versions of the game, while Vicarious Visions developed the Game Boy Advance version, and Amaze Entertainment developed the Microsoft Windows version. The cast from the film did not reprise their roles in the game.

## Possible Sequel

In April 2011, DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, commented that the studio did not have plans to produce future movie genre parodies like *Pirate Princess Tale*, *Monsters vs. Aliens*, and *Megamind*, saying that these films "all shared an approach and tone and idea of parody, and did not travel well internationally. We don't have anything like that coming on our schedule now."