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Well well well, if it isnt another film review page. What you will see here is all my opinions on varioius anime and Sci-Fi films that I would want to review and all the cool ones that ppl missed out on seeing simply because "hollywood" deems them not very profitable. ^_^ Hopefully this will be am interesting page.

Mononoke Hime (aka 'Princess Mononoke')

Well A film by Hayao Mayizaki, one of the all time greatest animators of all time , the film tells a tale about a young man Ashitaka
who must travel across the country to look for a cure for a curse he incured from battling a giant Forest Boar spirit. Along the way
he encounters a war that is being waged between two neighbouring regions . Lady Eboshi, one of the leaders of the war torn conflict, invites Ashitaka to stay with their army after helping them out in an earlier situation. Here he learns about Lady Eboshi's plans to take over the country and her reckless nature to develop the forests. Ashitaka soon encounters San, the spirit princess, who is completely against lady Eboshi's plan to take over the forest, and San makes several attempts to take Eboshi's life. Ashitaka stops San from killing Eboshi and stops Eboshi army from killing San. The two escape from the camp and make their way into the forest. Ashitaka becomes severely injured and San nurses Ashitaka back to health. San and Ashitaka soon forge a strong friendship and plan a way to stop the forest from being destroyed.

Well ok the synopsis isnt the best way of describing the immensity of this film, but this film has a great sense of vastness in it. The opening scene where Ashitake battles the boar is quite awe inspiring and conjours up the imagination instantaneously. (Its the main reason I love Mayizaki's films) I mean how often do you see a giant boar covered in snakes? The animation is completly jaw dropping.Very fluid and very beautiful. The color sceme of greens and blues give the film a very cool and relaxing feeling on the eyes. The actions scenes are also quite good especially the parts where you see Ashitaka riding Yakura.The scenes are actually done on computer and the way they weave the graphics with the animation is completely seemless( which in some films, can look quite bad). Music is good. Not memorable though, but suits the movie non-the-less. Actually the opening theme sounds a lot like the Braveheart theme. Although I am not sure which movie came out first. I think it was Braveheart. ^_^

The story and the interaction between the characters is very well written. With a lot of anime movies and series, the story can get very same after a while( take Guyver for example, an extreme example) and its basically just fighting one bad guy after another. But the story here is quite 'nice'. The 'main' story about Ashitaka's journey across the country, the secret government spies sent to check out the war and their hidden agendas, the story about San and her mission, and the way the movie ends is also quite special. It's one of those, "awww man, can't we see the movie just go for a few more minutes" sort of ending, which would indicate you have either being engrossed in the movie so much you want to see more, or you felt they didnt finsih it. They finished it.

Coolest character in the film: The Kodama, man I love those rocking heads!

Best scene: When an arrow is flung from Ashitakas arm and takes off one of the soldiers head! Choice!

Overall this is definately one of the best anime films I have ever seen. And for some reason Disney bought the rights to the film. To make sure that this film never took off? we will never know, but will be released on DVD soon enough.

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