Studios: Toho/Studio Ghibli
Initial release date: July 12, 1997 (27 YEARS OLD!!!)
Tagline: Live on
The Fate Of The World Rests On The Courage Of One Warrior
Plot: In the 14th century, the harmony that humans, animals and gods have enjoyed begins to crumble. The protagonist, young Ashitaka - infected by an animal attack, seeks a cure from the deer-like god Shishigami. In his travels, he sees humans ravaging the earth, bringing down the wrath of wolf god Moro and his human companion Princess Mononoke. His attempts to broker peace between her and the humans brings only conflict.
Rated PG-13 for images of violence and gore (133 minutes)
The 1997 anime Princess Mononoke is a visually stunning film that can captivate anime fans with its great storytelling and its beautiful animation. Watching this film and a couple others beforehand, it shows that Hayao Miyazaki knows what he's doing when creating a powerful anime film.
The story can be a little complex at times, but still thoroughly enjoyable. The animation is nothing short of astonishing and each frame is incredibly crafted. Princess Mononoke also has some great action and battles that are tense and visually astounding.
Overall, Princess Mononoke is a great film that anime fans will surely enjoy. Even if you aren't a huge fan of the anime genre (like myself), you could still give this film a shot and enjoy yourself.
Here are quite a few interesting tidbits for this 1997 anime classic!
This is the last major animated motion picture to be filmed on plastic animation cels.
Director Hayao Miyazaki personally corrected or redrew more than 80,000 of the film's 144,000 animation cels.
Miyazaki had intended this to be his final film before retiring. Its great success led him to do Spirited Away. He has made more films in the years since.
When Harvey Weinstein obtained the North American distribution rights to the film, he approached Miyazaki and insisted on a shorter version of the film that would be better attuned to American audiences. However, Miyazaki was still so upset by the heavily cut version of his Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) (released as Warriors of the Wind) that he angrily left the meeting.
Several days later, Studio Ghibli producer Tashio Suzuki sent a Katana sword to Weinstein's office with 'NO CUTS' embedded into its blade. The film was later released in the US in its uncut version. When asked about the incident in an interview, Miyazaki simply smiled and stated "I defeated him."
Produced for about 2.35 billion Japanese Yen (approx. $23.5 million US) it was the most expensive anime ever made at the time of its release.
Mononoke means angry or vengeful spirit. Hime is the Japanese honorific word that means princess, which, in the rules of Japanese grammar, is placed after a person's name instead of before, as is the custom in many Western languages. When the film's title was translated into English, it was decided that Mononoke would be left as a name rather than translated literally. This also explains why Ashitaka mostly calls the princess by her real name "San" instead of Mononoke.
Princess Mononoke replaces E.T. as the biggest grossing film of all time in Japan until Titanic.
Disney/Miramax, which released the film domestically, was contractually obligated not to edit any footage out for its domestic release. They asked to, but were refused. Although they kept their end of the bargain in not editing the film, they did release it into far fewer theaters then promised and expressed surprise that it made little money at the box office.
Was the official submission of Japan for the Best Foreign Language Film (now International feature) category of The 70th Academy Awards in 1998, as the category for Animated Feature wasn't created until 2001. The film didn't secure the nomination and was the only Japanese anime film submitted in this category until Weathering with You in 2019 which also failed to secure a nomination.
Miyazaki composed the preliminary ideas for what would become Princess Mononoke shortly after the release of his first film The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), drawing sketches of a princess living in the woods with a beast. After unsuccessfully proposing the project to several production companies, Miyazaki published his concepts in a 1983 book, republished in 2014 as Princess Mononoke: The First Story.
While being set in Japan, the concept had strong similarities to the fairy take Beauty and the Beast. According to film scholar Rayna Denison, the differences that can be discerned between the original idea and the final film demonstrate the radical change of Miyazaki's film-making philosophies.
Miyazaki didn't want to create an accurate history of Medieval Japan, and wanted to "portray the very beginnings of the seemingly insoluble conflict between the natural world and modern industrial civilization." Despite being set during the Muromachi period, the actual time period of Princess Mononoke depicts a "symbolic never-when clash of three proto-Japanese races (the Jomon, Yamato and Emishi)."
Princess Mononoke was released theatrically in Japan on July 12, 1997. Since Disney had made a distribution deal with Tokuma Shoten for Studio Ghibli's films in 1996, it was the first film from Studio Ghibli along with Castle in the Sky (1986), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), to have been dubbed into English by Disney.
It was the highest grossing anime film in the US in January 2001, but because its US release was only in select theaters, the film didn't fare as well financially in the country when released in October 1999. It grossed $2.2 million in its first 8 weeks.
The film earned a total of $11 million outside Japan, bringing its worldwide total to $159 million at the time. The film's limited US re-release in 2018 grossed $1.4 million over 5 days, bringing its US total to $3.7 million and worldwide total to $160 million. As of 2020, the film has grossed $194.3 million.
In 2001, Animage (a Japanese anime and entertainment magazine) ranked the film 47th in their list of the 100 best anime. It ranked 88th on Empire's list of the 500 greatest films. It also ranked No. 26 on Total Film's list of 50 greatest animated films.
James Cameron cited Princess Mononoke as an influence on his 2009 film Avatar. He acknowledged that it shares themes with this film, including its clash between cultures and civilizations, and cited this film as an influence on the ecosystem of Pandora.
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