Full review for Princess Mononoke
Ren Ke
Princess Mononoke is a cartoon movie, which is created by Japanese movie director Miyazaki.
Generally, the movie tells us a story about humans and the nature. Unlike the other cartoon movie,
―Princess Mononoke‖ chooses a serious topic to enlighten the audience and point out the vice of
humanity. The movie attracts many audiences when it shown in Japan and English-speaking
country.
In this film review, I will introduce the story by giving a film synopsis. Also, I will discuss three
positive (characters, film score and meaning of the story) and negative (voice acting, beginning of
the film and personality of Ashitaka) aspects to show the value and defections of the movie. After
reading this film review, audience may have a better understanding and make an appropriate
evaluation of the movie.
Film synopsis
The story begins in a small town which is located in the north. People are living in a peaceful life
there until one day a demon comes from the west forest to attack the town. A young man named
Ashitaka prevents the demon immediately from invading the town.
However, he is wounded by poisons from the demon during the fight. The only way to save his
life is to find the forest spirit in west forest. Therefore, he starts his journey to the west. During the
journey he saves two men who come from the west. Following after the Kodama they cross a big
forest which is full of mist and mysterious creatures. At last they arrive at Irontown.
Ashitaka sees something he has never seen before—the technology in steel-making industry, and
he meets San – Princess Mononoke. He also knows there is a fight between humans and nature.
Unavoidably, Ashitaka is involved in this war even if he is a pacifist. He tried his best to prevent
the war with San. Ultimately, they give back peace to the forest.
After reading the synopsis, readers may be interested in the film. However, there are some
insufficiencies at the beginning of the film.
The beginning of movie
The beginning of movie determines that if the audience will keep on watching the movie. In
Princess Mononoke, redundant narration and confused plot make the beginning does not do well
to catch audience interests.
Narration at the beginning of the film is really a redundancy. It breaks the atmosphere
which is provided by film scores and the image.
When I immerse myself in the beautiful score and imagine that I am in that flourishing
forest, the narration appears. It suddenly takes away my feeling to the music, and pushes
me back to the real world.
To me, I want to make myself to be one part of the film not just as an ordinary viewer, sitting and
watching the film. I expect to be surprised with the plot and hope to understand the film by myself.
When I was watching the film and thinking about what will happen. The narration is descriptive
and makes me bored.
Another problem is in the plot. The demon shows up quickly at the beginning, which makes me a
little surprised. I mean I have not prepared to watch the main plot because atmosphere changes too
quickly.
In addition, the demon attacks the Amish town soon after the first score. The atmosphere in this
section makes me nervous and uncomfortable. It needs a scene to give a transition between the
two atmospheres. For example it can show us life in the Amish town.
Also, the lack of the scenes makes me confused about the film. I wonder why Ashitaka arrives
when the demon comes. It seems that something has happened before the demon comes, but the
beginning does not show that to us. This lack of scene is due to the limitation of time. Maybe the
director wants to shorten the time by omitting some plots.
Though the lack of scenes at the beginning makes ―Princess Mononoke‖ a little bit confusing,
main plots in the movie make more sense because they are well connected by film scores.
Film score
Scores in Princess Mononoke connect the main plots very well. There are eight film scores in total
and each of them represents different plots and atmosphere. They not only reveal the time,
location of the film but also provide emotional focus to the audience.
The first score—the legend of Ashitaka is an introduction to the film. It tells us the beginning of
the story. At first, there is a mist forest shown on the screen which matches with the image, the
cello plays an undertone to provide a sense of mystery. Then, the tone becomes louder while a
large scale of forest is shown on the screen which makes us feel that we are imposing. And here is
the place that the story starts.
As the tune of music suddenly goes down, the story moves into the next section. The second
score—Ta Ta Ri Gami represents the aggression of the demon. With the help of the percussion
instruments and the trombone the score makes us feel stressful and nervous. We can predict that
there might be something upsetting that will happen. The music styles of the first and second
scores are quite different which separate the plots into different sections.
The third score—the Journey to the West is well
performed to show the places that Ashitaka passed by.
The tone of this score is lyrical. At the beginning, the
sound of the violin and cello are light, which makes us
image the grass on the land.
Also, the gentleness of the harp sounds like the wind. We can imagine that the grass is swaying in
the wind and clouds are floating in the sky. As the journey goes on the clarinet is added in, which
allows us to think about a picture of a small river flowing in front of us.
The tune of trombones and violins increase when Ashitaka is traveling through the mountain.
After crossing over the mountain, the rhythm becomes bright. With the melodious sound of the
flute and the violin we can feel that Ashitaka arrives at a lively city where people are busy with
work.
As the journey goes on, places change as well. This score provides a wonderful connection when
there is a switch from place to place.
The eighth score—Ashitaka and San gives the story a
good end. In this score, the piano is the predominate
instrument. When hearing the sound of the piano we
can feel that the sunshine break the dark sky. Add with
the accompaniment of the violin and flute we can
imagine the growing of the grass and trees.
Though the forest spirit has died, lives on the ground
are reborn. Breathing the fresh air and standing in the
wind, Ashitaka and San can see hopes in front of life
and so do us. As the end song of the film this score
matches the story very well.
As we can see, scores in this film is really successful because they not only connect the main plots,
but also provide emotional focus to the audience. Another success in ―Princess Mononke ‖ is
character. If scores connect the main plots of the movie, characters are clueds to the plots.
Character
As a clue to the whole movie, character’s personality influent plots of the movie. In ―Princess
Mononke,‖ characters are different from traditional cartoon characters. Each of them has varied
personalities. In this film the director creates neither a hero who will save everything nor a villain
who will destroy everything. Every character has more than one side.
First of all, let us look at the negative character in the
film—the lady Eboshi Gozen. As a leader of the Irontown,
Eboshi Gozen is forceful and selfish. From her personality
we could see appetency and rapacity. She tends to destroy
the forest and use gun to kill forest gods and forest spirit.
However, no one is completely good or bad. To her people,
she is a good leader; she gives women the same rights that
men have. Also, if we have a deep thinking we can find that all her selfish are for the development
of the town. Thus, people in the Irontown respect her very much.
We can say she is selfish, but what she has done is for the people who live in Irontown. We could
say that she is cold-blooded, but her cruelty is shown to her enemy. In general, she is kind but
cruel, shellfish but contributive.
Like Eboshi Gozen, the positive character is not a completely hero in the film. As a positive
character, Ashitake is clam and gentle. It seems he is never mad at someone even if he has been
hurt by that person. When the woman in Irontown shoots him by gun, he does not get mad as well.
Instead of being irritated he takes San and leaves the town calmly.
Though Ashitaka does not want to hurt others, it does not
mean he never uses force to solve problems. When he sees
the army invade a small town and kill innocent people, he
uses his arrows to fight with them.
As we can see, Ashitaka is also very calm and seldom makes
decision out of impulse. However, he will be angry when he
sees something unfair and unreasonable. When he finds out
that Eboshi Gozen’s has a plan to destroy the forest, he is so
incensed that his hair stands up.
It seems that Ashitaka is a well designed main character at the first look. However, if we have a
further analysis about him, we may find that his personality is not as abundant as other characters’.
His calmness makes him cold, and makes his relationship with San not so clear. Also, some
actions of Ashitaka are run contrary to his personality.
Calmness is a good personal property for a man. However, this personality makes Ashitaka cold in
the film. Sometimes it even makes me think that he is apathetic
At the Irontown, people welcome him when he arrives, but Ashitaka does not give any response to
those people. He seldom smiles, and when people show their curiosity to his story he just simply
answers their questions without any facial expression. Maybe the director wants to show
Ashitaka’s calmness in these contexts, but this makes him seem like a cold and passionless man.
Because of Ashitaka’s calmness, it is also hard to catch his emotion. As for San, I do not know if
Ashitaka loves her or not.
In saving San, he almost loses his life in the Irontown. It seems that he loves San more than his
own life. However, saving San cannot really prove his affection; maybe he just treats San as a
little sister or his care to San just proceeds from his sympathy.
Though he has said, ―you are beautiful‖ after they leave the Irontown, His love for San is unclear
because at that time he is semiconscious. At the end of the film, Ashitaka only says he will visit
San very often. He does not show that he has a willing to stay and live with San, which makes
them more likely friends rather than lovers.
Besides the unclear emotion to San, some actions of Ashitaka are run contrary to his personality.
As we know Ashitaka is gentle and calm. Such a man should love his family and his friends.
However, when he is going to leave his village he does not show any hesitation or reluctance. It
seems he do not want to stay in his village any more.
To Kaya, Ashitaka’s sensation is too inexplicit. If I do not read the synopsis online, I even do not
know Kaya is Ashitaka’s fiancée. When Kaya gives her necklace to him, he only says ―I will never
forget you‖ in a clam voice. This is a leaving time; at least he should hug his fiancée. However, he
just leaves that simple words and goes away. This makes him not as gentle as he should be.
Though some actions of Ashitaka do not match his personality very well, we can not deny that his
voice actor is excellently express that piece of calm of Ashitaka. However, some other voice actors
seem not catch the personality of characters in the film.
Voice Acting
The voice acting of the film is relatively unsuitable when compare to the Japanese voice acting. In
Princess Mononoke, English voice acting for Moro Eboshi Gozen and San, do not match with the
personalities of the characters.
Let us look at Moro first. As a forest god, Moro lives in
the world for a long time and has seen many wars that
have happened between humans and nature. So from
her voice we should feel that a trusted and sagacious
elder is talking to us. As a god her voice should be
powerful as well.
Generally speaking, Moro plays the role of a teacher.
Because she tries to control herself not to hurt people
who love peace (such as Ashitaka) and tell them the
truth. We should feel serious but not frightened when
she gives caution to us.
However, in this film the voice acting for Moro does not indicate the sense of safety. Her voice
sounds like that of an elder, but not one that I will respect. This is because her voice is hoarse
instead of powerful. Much worse, the hoarse voice makes her sounds like a devil rather than a god.
There is something frightening about her voice, which makes her sound like an old witch.
As with Moro’s voice, the voice acting for Eboshi
Gozen does not match the character either. To be a
leader, she should be authoritative and just. Thus
audiences would expect her voice to be mighty and
believable.
Although she is a powerful woman, and sometimes
intimidates us when she faces her enemy, generally she
is a kind woman to her people. So her voice should also
be a little bit affable when she is talking to her people.
This should be a complex voice because it needs to represent two traits: intimidation and
gentleness. In this film the voice actor just shows the quality of intimidation by speaking in an
exaggerative voice. The addition of a British accent does not make Eboish Gozen sound gentle
when talking to her people. What is worse, the voice makes her sound unfriendly and barbaric.
San’s voice acting is better than the voice acting of the
characters mentioned above. However, there is still
limitation in this voice acting.
San is a girl who grows up in the forest and is brought
up by wolf. Thus we should feel savagery from her
voice and actions. At the same time, San is an
18-year-old girl. A young girl at this age should be
brisk and puerile. Because she is a daughter of Moro,
her voice is expected to be influential but not so strong.
In this film, San’s voice is a little bit more powerful than voice acting in Japanese. Also, English
voice acting is a little gruff which makes San sound older than she looks. Maybe this is because
the European and Asian voice expressions are quite different.
This insufficient of voice acting is acceptable because it may be caused by the different cultural
back ground. Also, the inappropriate voice acting is not severe enough to mislead the audience’s
understanding because the main point and meaning of the movie is clearly shown.
Meaning of the story
One of the most important reasons that we should watch Princess Mononoke is because it has a
well developed meaning. The reason that a director makes a movie is not just to entertain us. The
key point is he wants show the audience issues or factors we meet in the society. Here I will talk
about explicit, implicit and repressed meaning of this movie.
Explicit meaning can be gotten directly from the message (such as dialogue and action) from the
film. In Princess Mononoke, the explicit meaning is to avoid wars between humans and the forest.
Ashitaka plays a role that wants to prevent war. His goal is simple: to make humans and the forest
live in peace. In Irontown when San and Eboshi Gozen fight, he stands out and prevents them
from fighting. When he knows the army will attack the forest, he tries his best to leave a message
to the forest gods and tries to persuade both of them to give up fighting. He knows conflict will
not solve problems but make things worse. At last, the war is over, but nobody wins. The forest
spirit dies and the Irontown is destroyed. That is what wars leave to us.
By contrast, implicit meaning is an indirect message in the movie. In Princess Mononoke the
implicit meaning is living.
People in the Irontown destroy the forest because they need resources to live and develop. The
forest gods struggle against humans because they want to protect the home where they live. Living
is the foundation of any creature on earth. From this point there is no wrong or right between
humans and nature. We may say humans are selfish and cruel. We may feel irritated when Eboshi
Gozen shoots the head of the forest spirit. However, to Eboshi Gozen people in the Irontown is
more important. To keep the town she can sacrifice everything.
Perhaps to live is a selfish desire. At the end, the forest spirit dies, but its body brings life back to
the forest. As Ashitaka says ―nothing is over, both of us are alive.‖ Yes, nothing is more important
than life. Even the forest spirit will never come back; even the war between humans and nature
will never stop. People will try their best to live.
Repressed meaning is related to the background. Here the movie shows the relationship between
humans and nature.Humans are from nature, as the time passes they separate and live in groups.
The people who live in Irontown are in this group. In order to survive they get resources from the
forest. The more resources they need the more conflicts there are between humans and nature. The
movie implies that the aspiration to live makes humans selfish.
Eboshi Gozen plays the role of an exploiter who kills the original habitants in the forest to develop
her town. This action makes the forest angry, as the forest gods, Moro and Okkotonushi, fight
humans to protect the forest. At this point they represent as the power of nature.
Ashitaka plays the role of a persuader. He represents the groups of people who are in favor of
peace. Generally, they stand in a neutral position. Thus they can see the truth with their eyes
unclouded by hate.
San is a more complex symbol in the movie. She is human on the exterior, but belongs to the
forest on the interior. As a contradictive character, San represents the group of people who for
some reasons find the evil sides of the human beings, which make them fight against their race.
The ending of the movie reveals that humans and nature will never get along with each other, but
both groups will keep on living.
Conclusion
This review gives out merits and shortages of ―Princess Mononoke‖. It focuses on discussing three
positive aspects (characters, scores and meaning of the movie) and three negative aspects (voice
acting, beginning of the film and personality of Ashitaka) of the film.
Characters, scores and meaning of the film are three elements which attract audience most. In
Princess Mononoke Characters are varied in personalities, scores connect the main plots very well,
and the meaning of the movie help audience to have a deep understanding of humans and
environment.
Besides these positive elements, voice acting, personality of Ashitaka and the beginning of the
movie seems not insufficient: firstly, at the beginning of the film the narration is redundant and
some of the plots are lack of connections. Then voice acting for some characters is not appropriate
for their personalities. At last, there are some suspensions in Ashitaka’s actions and his personality.
However, these defections can be understood because some of them are caused by different
culture background and the limitation of time. Typically, ―Princess Mononoke‖ is worth watching.
Audience may be enlightened and shocked by its deep meaning.
Reference
Neil Gaiman
Wiliqute—Princess Mononoke
Retrieved in October 28, 2008 from
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Princess_Mononoke