{"id":6323,"date":"2024-10-19T23:20:29","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T03:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6323"},"modified":"2024-10-19T23:20:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T03:20:29","slug":"the-boy-and-the-heron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/19\/the-boy-and-the-heron\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boy and the Heron"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Boy and the Heron <\/strong>(2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 GKIDS\/Fantasy-Adventure-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some violent content and bloody images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hayao Miyazaki\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Hisaishi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Atsushi Okui\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 14, 2023 (Japan)\/December 8, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Shohei Hino, Ko Shibasaki, Jun Kunimura, Keiko Takeshita, Jun Fubuki, Sawako Agawa, Shinobu Otake, Karen Takizawa.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in Japanese w\/English subtitles\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Box Office: $46.8M (US)\/$173.3M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the second time in as many weeks, a Japanese-made film is among the new offerings at multiplexes. Last week, it was Godzilla Minus One, surprisingly one of the season\u2019s most acclaimed films. This week it\u2019s The Boy and the Heron<\/strong>, the new film from animator-writer-director Hayao Miyazaki, the man who has graced cinema with exquisite animated masterpieces like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl\u2019s Moving Castle and The Wind Rises. That last title was supposed to be the 82YO artist\u2019s final film, but he came out of retirement to make another final film. I guess he had more to say about life. Maybe we ought to sit up and listen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story, a blend of drama and fantasy, centers on 12YO Mahito (Santoki) who loses his mother to a hospital fire in the film\u2019s prologue. The boy and his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura) leave Tokyo to start over in the countryside with his new wife Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura), the younger sister of his late first wife. Mahito isn\u2019t happy about any of it. In fact, he isn\u2019t happy period. He doesn\u2019t much care for his new mother and his father is always busy with his munitions factory. The kids at his new school take an instant dislike to him. When combined with his grief, it\u2019s a heavy burden to bear.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Things take a weird turn when a big gray heron starts to taunt and pester Mahito. It leads him to an old ruined tower in the woods, the same place where his granduncle mysteriously disappeared many years before. The boy initially wants to be left alone. That changes when a pregnant Natsuko goes missing after Mahito sees her heading towards the tower. The heron urges him to enter by claiming his dead mother is waiting for him inside. Accompanied by elderly housemaid Kiriko (Shibasaki), he follows the heron into the tower which leads directly to a magical alternate world. He then proceeds to look for Natsuko and his mother.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It hasn\u2019t been a great year for animated films. Too many of them- e.g. Elemental, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken and (to an extent) Wish- are soulless exercises that exist only to make $$$. Up until this point, the only one that went above and beyond was Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. While I wouldn\u2019t count The Boy and the Heron<\/strong> among Miyazaki\u2019s best, it\u2019s still much more than some dumb cartoon for kids. It\u2019s not even for kids, smaller ones anyway. While there\u2019s nothing inappropriate in it per se, the little ones won\u2019t understand its deeper themes. On the surface, it\u2019s about a boy having an adventure in a fantasy world that isn\u2019t always pretty. Underneath it, you\u2019ll find a drama about a boy learning a valuable life lesson, that emotional pain is an unavoidable part of life. You can\u2019t just avert it by choosing to live in a fantasy rather than reality. In that sense, The Boy and the Heron<\/strong> is a coming-of-age drama. Little kids won\u2019t get that part meaning they won\u2019t fully appreciate what Miyazaki is doing here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s a lot to be said for traditional hand-drawn animation as opposed to the computer-generated style favored by American studios these days. It\u2019s become too commonplace since Pixar introduced it to the moviegoing public with Toy Story in \u201995. That\u2019s why it\u2019s an event to some when Studio Ghibli, mainly through GKIDS in the US, releases a new movie. In addition to Miyazaki\u2019s films, they also put out The Secret World of Arrietty, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There and The Red Turtle. Each one is beautiful to look at. The same can be said of The Boy and the Heron<\/strong>. The animation is positively flawless. Miyazaki is a true, honest-to-God artist in addition to being a master-class storyteller. His illustrations are absolutely enthralling.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As much as I like The Boy and the Heron<\/strong>, it\u2019s not perfect. It has pacing issues. The first hour feels a bit dragged out. The mix of drama and fantasy feels slightly off this time. Also, the heron character tends to be annoying. Without giving too much away, he undergoes a transformation that\u2019s actually kind of creepy. It lessened my overall enjoyment of the film.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cinemas are offering customers the option of seeing The Boy and the Heron<\/strong> spoken in its original language or dubbed into English. I saw the subtitled version and was quite pleased with the voice talents despite Mahito sounding older than 12. The dubbed version features the voice talents of known actors like Robert Pattinson (the Heron), Gemma Chan (Natsuko), Christian Bale (Shoichi) and Florence Pugh (Kiriko) as well as Mark Hammill, Willem Dafoe and Dave Bautista. My multiplex of choice alternates between the two. Check your theater show times to see which version is playing at what time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In general, I really like The Boy and the Heron<\/strong>, but I don\u2019t love it. It\u2019s good not great. That, of course, is only my opinion. Others have been raving about it. I think it\u2019s definitely worth checking out, especially if you\u2019re a fan of Miyazaki and animation. He says this will be his final film, but you never know. He might just have one more in him. We shall see.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boy and the Heron (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 GKIDS\/Fantasy-Adventure-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some violent content and bloody images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hayao Miyazaki\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Hisaishi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Atsushi Okui\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 14, 2023 (Japan)\/December 8, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Shohei Hino, Ko Shibasaki, Jun Kunimura, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/The-Boy-and-the-Heron-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6323"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6492,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323\/revisions\/6492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}