By: Max Xu
25 years ago, the film Princess Mononoke was released in Japan. It was a national sensation, grossing over $160 million at the box office and becoming the new record holder, beating out ET by about a $100 million.
The movie was an artistic masterpiece. When Neil Gaiman, a British fantasy author, received a call to write the script for the English version of it, he wasn’t going to do it initially.
“I had zero plans to do it,” Gaiman says in an interview with BBC Culture, but he changed his mind once he watched the film. “And I’m like, ‘I have never seen anything like this. This is real filmmaking. This is David Lean-level filmmaking. This is Akira Kurosawalevel filmmaking. This is the real deal.'”
Princess Mononoke was made by famous animator and director Hayao Miyazki, who had made many popular films and co-founded Studio Ghibli. His previous works were all family-friendly and made for kids, but Princess Mononoke was different.
Miyazki had begun to become annoyed by people saying that Studio Ghibli only made sweet films about nature. However, the main cause of his actions was when events happened to make him believe the world was cursed.
“He used to be what he called leftist in sympathy, a believer in people power,” explains Shiro Yoshioka, lecturer in Japanese Studies at Newcastle University. “But for obvious reasons [the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the escalation in ethnic conflicts across Europe], his political beliefs were totally shaken in the early 1990s.”
He began to think that he should make something not for children, and instead something more substantial. The movie is violent and bloody, with scenes with heads chopped off and blood gushing out.
Even though Princess Mononoke was a huge hit in Japan, when Miramax, then-subsidiary of Disney, released the English version, it only grossed $2 million domestically. This was most likely due to the fact that Americans weren’t ready for this type of film, and Miyazaki has the same opinion.
“There are few barriers to entry into [animated] films – they will invite anyone in – but the barriers to exit must be high and purifying,” said Miyazaki, “the barrier to both the entry and exit of Disney films is too low and too wide. To me, they show nothing but contempt for the audience.”
Miyazaki’s revolutionary film may not have been well accepted in America, but it truly is a masterpiece and is shown with its incredible sales in Japan.
Article: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220713-princess-mononoke-the-masterpiece-that-flummoxed-the-us