There are some movies where, at a certain point in my watching them for the first time, I’ve already decided that I’m going to purchase a copy for myself. In the last year, I had just that experience with the movies Paris, Texas, and the 1977 Japanese horror/fantasy film House. Over the years, many different movies have had this effect on me, but the first one that comes to mind is Princess Mononoke. When I was about 20 years old in 2000, I visited my parents’ home, and my then-just-teenaged brother took me aside and told me that I needed to “watch 10 minutes of this movie”. At the time, I wasn’t watching a lot of movies, and I was painfully judgmental of his interest in anime. It was mainly just giant robots fighting monsters, and my focus was elsewhere. He knew this and still fought uphill against my instincts, convincing me to sit and watch. Ten minutes into the film, I told him to turn it off because I already knew that I was going to go buy it the next day.
Some 25 years later, Princess Mononoke has been a part of my life over and over again in multiple ways. I’ve recommended it countless times to friends and strangers alike, it was my son’s favorite movie for a long period of time as he was growing up, and it’s one of the only movies that I’ve gone to see multiple showings of in a movie theater in its original Japanese. I watched that original Miramax distributed VHS American English dub version so often that I can occasionally hear Billy Bob Thornton’s god awful voice performance over whenever the character Jigo speaks.
The screening I attended was a 12:15 showing on a Tuesday afternoon, and there were six other people in the theater. I chat up a fellow audience member a few seats down from me and in the short exchange we had before trailer began he mentioned Mononoke being his favorite, that he made sure his kids had access to all of director Hayao Miyazaki’s movies when they were growing up and downplayed his devotee status as he humble bragged that had visites The studio Ghibli Museum in Japan. In the middle of the day, showing in a suburb of Seattle, and this is who I’m sitting next to. Not a lot of near 30-year-old movies are going to illicit midday turnout.
When the trailers finished and the dim lights were completely dark, the iconic Studio Ghibli vanity card appeared, with their mascot Totoro’s profile drawn in white, in contrast with the all-blue screen bathing the room in warmth. Moments like this are why I love going to the movies. How can seeing the name of the studio get me so excited for what’s to come?
Very quickly, I began to realize what exactly a 4K remastering of Princess Mononoke meant. First off, there’s a more accurate English translation that accompanies the film now. Very often, when a film is subtitled, the powers that be, State aides, create the text based on the dub translation, which is meant to fit the mouth movements of the characters better. In doing so, the closed captions match the audio, and having a correct translation would create a disparity between the multiple subtitle tracks. With the new translation, details like the words “wise woman” being replaced with the more accurate “Oracle” just made more sense, and after years of watching the movie, it came across to me as not feeling talked down to an audience member. It was oddly refreshing.
The restoration was overseen by Atsushi Okui, a longtime Studio Ghibli director of photography who has worked on practically every Ghibli feature since 1993’s Porco Rosso.
Unlike some 4K updates that have used AI to upscale the film’s already-existing digital master, Atsushi used the original 35 mm negatives and remastered them using the new technology. It’s beyond gorgeous.
The landscapes, the attention to detail, and even some remastering had to have been done on the CGI-assisted scenes in the movie. Something director Miyazaki has always had rules about his animators using computer-assisted animation. When the first demon appears on screen and stares into camera it’s eyes are more red and the way the tendrils move across its face come across ass more aggressive and menacing. The colors seem brighter, and over again, details lost to time pop out in a way that I never thought I’d experience.
It’s worth noting that the enhancements of the film are not merely visual. The score and the sound design seem to have been given an upgrade, and the results are wonderful. As marvelous and captivating as the music is, the sound design really shines through in a theatrical setting. The quiet moments where the music stopped and the sound of rain and or wind became pervasive over the sound of everything else stood out as a marvelous use of this digital upgrade. The music and the sound design, particularly, where the sound effects, vocal tracks, and music live in the left channel and right channels now… that’s worth the price of your ticket alone to experience. I’ve never experienced a sound design as immersive as that of a regular movie theater.
There is so much I could say about this movie. It’s getting close to 30 years old now, and I shouldn’t be concerned with giving spoilers, but I feel the need to hold back as I believe anyone going in cold should be granted the same delight as anyone else who came to the party a long while ago. Just beneath its fantasy veneer, Mononoke is a parable about the importance of environmentalism, but there’s so much more to it that’s hidden in the grey areas created by the narrative. Although it was conceived and created in the 90s, Mononoke’s messages do not come across as folksy or outdated. To quote director Hayao Miyazaki regarding the film,
“You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.” -Miyazaki
Princess Mononoke is currently scheduled to show in its remastered 4K form in select theaters throughout the US for at least another week.
