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August 11, 2006
BATTLE OF THE ANIMATED MOVIES - JAPAN!
Last week in Japan, two animated big budget features went toe-to-toe: Fuji TV's BRAVE STORY and Studio Ghibli's TALES FROM EARTHSEA directed by Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro Miyazaki. The movies opened to okay business but who was the winner? Which charming, childhood fantasy pummeled the other into a pile of shattered teeth and bloodied bones? Which adorable animated film made the other its jailhouse punk? Who was ZOMG PWND?!?
Neither.
Japan's animated movie that has the most buzz and is doing the best business is THE LITTLE GIRL WHO CONQUERED TIME, which got a limited release on July 15 and is now expanding. It's directed by Hoosda, who was the original director of HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE before he was fired and replaced by Miyazaki. Now the blogs are buzzing that this is his revenge on Ghibli since THE LITTLE GIRL WHO CONQUERED TIME is getting great buzz and the nepotism-fest that is TALES FROM EARTHSEA is getting trashed. Japan's Eiga Seikatsu website that collected user reviews and assigns them a collective rating is putting EARTHSEA at 46.38 and BRAVE STORY at 51.66. LITTLE GIRL comes in at 89.69.
Not bad for an animated film that's a remake of the 1983 live action Kadokawa movie by the same name (which is screening at the Japan Society in November).
(Thanks to HogaCentral for the story)
August 11, 2006 at 11:59 AM in News | Permalink
Comments
'the little girl who conquered time' is also one of the first DVDs out in HK thanks to the new kadokawa / daiei and IVL licensing arrangement - dddhouse.com has 5 of the first set (due out on the 17th) up now, but somehow it doesnt yet list the preannounced release of this film under an alternative title 'the girl who cut time'... japanese cinema fans finally have their own 'shaw brothers situation' : far too many good films, far too cheaply, far too often. cool.
seems that story may have been remade more than once though... i am looking forwards to seeing Hoosda's version which is bound to arrive in america soon.
Posted by: logboy | Aug 12, 2006 9:35:58 AM
Funnily enough, "The Little Girl Who Conquered Time" is based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui...who also wrote "Everyone But Japan Sinks." I'd like to see the film version of the latter do as well as the former, but I'm not banking on it.
Posted by: Bob Violence | Aug 12, 2006 11:12:17 AM
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