Deer King director brought Princess Mononoke lessons to new anime epic

Masashi Ando is not afraid to learn from the masters and admit it. A quarter of a century ago, Hayao Miyazaki, the most influential figure in the world’s animation world since Walt Disney, shattered his stunning trio of intricate yet children’s works. Princess Mononoke, a magnificent fusion of period fantasy and sociocultural criticism, with a tender multifaceted relationship at its heart. Ando was Miyazaki’s chief animation director and was responsible for some of the memorable character designs. deer kingis out now on digital platforms and is coming to Blu-ray on October 18th.

“I really think so Princess Mononoke I can’t erase my contribution, what that film did for me,” he said through a translator earlier this year. “Indeed, when I saw the final cut of the film, I realized how grateful I was. Mononoke I was able to visualize some aspects of deer king”

For lovers of Miyazaki films, it’s clear from the start.Adapted from Nahoko Uehashi’s fantasy novel of the same name.co-directed by another Ghibli veteran Masayuki Miyaji, deer king is like a piece with Mononoke Both in story and style. Its main characters are exiles in a land torn apart by human greed. He is plagued by a curse that threatens the land even more, and has an unnatural talent for combat despite a kind heart that is barely masked by his survivalist demeanor. Over the course of his adventures, he makes friends and foes on many fronts by sticking to his commitments and principles despite the inevitability of costs. and he is riding a deer.

Van is the last survivor of a guerrilla resistance group of Aquafa people enslaved by the victorious Zol Empire after years of conflict. He escapes with Yuna, a girl whom he takes care of like a daughter. (The book series was published in his 2014, but after nearly three years of a pandemic, it’s hard not to see some eerie parallels between Van’s world and ours.) Hmm.)

After rumors of Van’s survival spread, Zor’s doctor, Hhothar, seeks him out in hopes of finding a cure for the disease that infected the Emperor himself. Elsewhere, plans for a rebellion hatch, drawing Van, Yuna, and Hhothar into the center of a growing conflict that they all hope to avoid.

The almost two-hour running time of the film is just 20 shy. Mononoke‘s 133 minutes, but it’s full of ideas that could have been extended longer. deer king It deals with the subtle politics of a colonized realm and the motivations that fuel its factions.

“This novel is very long, complicated and has a lot of information,” Ando said. “That was the charm of the novel, but partly because it was extremely difficult to make it into a movie, in the end we decided to focus on the relationship between Van and Yuna among all the events that occur in the novel. That’s the heart of the movie.

That choice is the film’s key strength and Achilles heel. The relationship between Van and Yuna is the emotional and narrative centerpiece of the film, but their narrative dominance comes at the expense of the other characters played by Ando. A more prominent role in Uehashi’s book. “Those who have read this novel know that this is not just Van’s problem.” Hawthar’s story runs parallel to Van’s.”

Image: Production IG/GKIDS

Meanwhile, in the film, the journeys of Van and Hawthar are intertwined. “Put Van at the center of the film,” said Ando. So in the movie, we made sure that Hothar is included in Van’s journey to retrieve Yuna.” This is after the two are separated in the second act.

While messing up from time to time, deer king With lush background illustrations, a keen sense of motion, and surprisingly smooth special effects when the film’s more mysterious elements take center stage, the animation alone is worth a look. Above all, the character designs and animations are phenomenal. This was because the constraints presented by the film’s reticent dramatic persona forced greater attention to finer visual details.

“I really wanted the character designs to really represent the background of each character,” said Ando. You’ll also notice that he tends to look far ahead, and I wanted you to get a sense of what he was like by doing it with his eyes. He’s always looking somewhere in the distance, but that changes when he’s with Yuna, and I wanted those visual cues to express his relationship and feelings towards Yuna. ”

deer king It’s not that the year Mamoru Hosoda and Masaaki Yuasa’s new film landed in the United States made competition for that title easier, but the film’s animation did. Ando’s next film may just be a revelation. After all, it will take time, but like many students, he may become a master by the end of the story.

deer king Now available for rent on Amazon, Apple, Vudu, and other digital storefronts.