Sadly, I didn't get to see this before the Oscar ceremony but it wouldn't have affected my pool. While it is lovely to look at and interesting to see a Japanese folktale, as opposed to traditional American ones, it clocks in at almost two and a half hours and that was just far too long to hold my interest.Once upon a time, an old bamboo-cutter (James Caan) sees something magical: a stalk of bamboo glowing in the forest. As he watches, the stalk grows and flowers. Hidden within the petals is a tiny princess. The bamboo-cutter picks her up and takes her home to his wife (Mary Steenburgen). The tiny girl soon grows into a human-sized child. The bamboo-cutter subsequently finds a bamboo filled with gold and another of rare silks. He decides that Heaven has sent him this child so he can raise her to be a princess. He constructs a mansion, moves his family to the capital, and sets about training Kaguya (Chloe Grace Moretz) to be a perfect lady. She doesn't really want anything more than to be free amongst the bamboo-cutters but she tries to be a dutiful daughter. She cannot keep her secrets forever, though.
I don't know if the movie was released with a Japanese voice cast or not. It's Studio Ghibli, so they have a partnership with Disney, which means that they're able to assemble a stunning voice cast of celebrities. Also recognizable were Darren Criss, Oliver Platt, and Dean Cain as well as Lucy Liu, James Marsden, John Cho, and Daniel Dae Kim. The disc automatically played in English and I am not planning on sitting through it again to find out if there are nuances I missed because it wasn't in its original language.
Also, I'm not sure if anyone cares but there is animated breast-feeding and animated naked baby butt. You don't usually see that in American animation, so if you're one of those people who wants to screen things for your kids, there's a head's-up.
No comments:
Post a Comment