The old Japanese folktale of the Bamboo Cutter is here reinterpreted to make Kaguya an alien visitor. Sticking fairly closely to the original 9th century tale of a bamboo cutter finding a mysterious baby girl, this film puts a modern spin onto it by turning the beautiful visitor from the moon into an alien entity lost from a crashed spaceship. Sounds silly, but.... It keeps the original story but "explains" what really happened to our modern sensibilities. I'd have preferred the more traditional folktale ending, but despite the Close Encounters of the Third Kind finale, this film still shines some light into that REALLY alien world, Heian Japan.
9 Reviews
Well Done Sci-Fi/Fable/Costume-Drama Mash Up!
net_orders2 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
PRINCESS FROM THE MOON / TALE OF THE BAMBOO CUTTER (LIT.) (TAKETORI MONOGATARI). Viewed on Streaming. Costumes = eight (8) stars; restoration/preservation = eight (8) stars; subtitles = eight (8) stars; cinematography = six (6) stars; set design = six (6) stars; score = five (5) stars; special effects = three (3) stars. Director Kon Ichikawa (who is also credited as a writer) provides a fairy tale (geared toward adults) set in the late 8th Century about the adventures of the sole survivor of a space-ship crash who arrives as an infant and is adopted and raised as a daughter by an impoverished rural couple whose young daughter has coincidentally just died. Ichikawa's fantasy photo-play is a well constructed, updated twist to an ancient (and mysterious) Japanese folk tale. (The sudden post-adoption wealth of the poor couple is particularly an enigma!) Toshirou Mifune's performance is usually upstaged by other actresses and actors. His line readings are considerably less that those of others. Apparently his name was used for window dressing. Leading actress Yasuko Sawaguchi fully develops her plumb role as the puzzling "princess" with an abundance of growth hormone. Supporting actresses and actors are generally fine except for bits of over acting here and there. Court scenes are especially well done. Costumes look (in color) and sound (like silk rustling?) spectacular. They also seem to be authentic for the period. Cinematography (wide screen, color) is okay, but village crowd scenes are often a bit blurry (perhaps to help hide exterior set limitations?). Unfortunately, the film goes off the rails in its final scenes and on the closing credits sound track. It takes way too long for this highly derived ending to wrap, and the special effects are dated (even when the film was released) and well on the cheesy side. (If you think you've already seen a huge space ship like this arrive and pick up a stray, you sure have in other sci-fi films with superior special effects!) End credits include a bolted-on song sung (would you believe?) in English and consisting of a one line lyric repeated Ad Nauseam. (Overly nervous producers/distributors?) Nonetheless, recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.
Leave it to Toho
DanTheMan2150AD17 October 2023
Leave it to Toho to make a live-action adaptation of The Tale of Princess Kaguya starring the legendary Toshiro Mifune, which involves heavy usage of special effects and an alien origin for the titular Princess. It's a madcap concoction with a superficially silly story that honestly shouldn't have worked as well as it did.
A married couple of poor farmers has lost their only child, who recently passed away. The woman, Tayoshime, cries out loud to heaven. The father Taketori-no-Miyatsuko, goes into the forests and sees a strange kind of electric storm. He finds, in the centre of the burnt land, a strange blue cocoon. It opens up and a small child, with piercing blue eyes and an uncanny resemblance to their dead daughter, appears. Soon good fortune begins to favour them but good fortune brings jealousy from others...
A very out there adaptation of its basis, Princess from the Moon is an extremely heartfelt movie despite it being rather silly in places but the tone is consistently held which doesn't detract from the experience. It's simple in the best way possible, that it continues to uphold its glittery, fairytale and dream-like nature until the very end. Kudos to director Kon Ichikawa here despite the grey colour palette that populates the film, for the most part, it's his use of colour that truly pops but I could have done without the George Lucas-inspired screen wipes.
The final work of Special Effects Director Teruyoshi Nakano and honestly, he earned his Academy Award here, even if I find baby Kaya very uncanny valley. It's with the film's Close Encounters-styled spaceship that shows up in the final 20 minutes where Nakano's effects really impress. A gorgeous mix of the designs from Close Encounters and Spielberg's other alien movie, ET, it arrives to a glorious fanfare and looks utterly spellbinding.
The score by Kensaku Tanikawa is one of the weirder elements for me, it simply doesn't fit very well in many situations and is very sappy in its spirit. Although I will say the final piece that plays as Kaya's ship leaves Earth is truly beautiful and of course, I have to shout out the credits theme "Stay With Me" done by Chicago frontman Peter Cetera.
There's a very reserved and understated performance by Toshiro Mifune here, a drastic turn from his talkative nature we've come to see in other films. Yasuko Sawaguchi is the titular princess and delivers a lovely performance; Megumi Odaka's performance as the blind girl Akeno is most certainly an audition for her later role as Miki Saegusa in the later Heisei Godzilla entries. The rest of the cast all perform their roles well. It's just a very well-acted film all things considered.
Overall, while Princess from the Moon might be an oversimplified version of the original tale, it doesn't skimp on its storytelling and title; worth it for Toshiro Mifune all things considered.
A married couple of poor farmers has lost their only child, who recently passed away. The woman, Tayoshime, cries out loud to heaven. The father Taketori-no-Miyatsuko, goes into the forests and sees a strange kind of electric storm. He finds, in the centre of the burnt land, a strange blue cocoon. It opens up and a small child, with piercing blue eyes and an uncanny resemblance to their dead daughter, appears. Soon good fortune begins to favour them but good fortune brings jealousy from others...
A very out there adaptation of its basis, Princess from the Moon is an extremely heartfelt movie despite it being rather silly in places but the tone is consistently held which doesn't detract from the experience. It's simple in the best way possible, that it continues to uphold its glittery, fairytale and dream-like nature until the very end. Kudos to director Kon Ichikawa here despite the grey colour palette that populates the film, for the most part, it's his use of colour that truly pops but I could have done without the George Lucas-inspired screen wipes.
The final work of Special Effects Director Teruyoshi Nakano and honestly, he earned his Academy Award here, even if I find baby Kaya very uncanny valley. It's with the film's Close Encounters-styled spaceship that shows up in the final 20 minutes where Nakano's effects really impress. A gorgeous mix of the designs from Close Encounters and Spielberg's other alien movie, ET, it arrives to a glorious fanfare and looks utterly spellbinding.
The score by Kensaku Tanikawa is one of the weirder elements for me, it simply doesn't fit very well in many situations and is very sappy in its spirit. Although I will say the final piece that plays as Kaya's ship leaves Earth is truly beautiful and of course, I have to shout out the credits theme "Stay With Me" done by Chicago frontman Peter Cetera.
There's a very reserved and understated performance by Toshiro Mifune here, a drastic turn from his talkative nature we've come to see in other films. Yasuko Sawaguchi is the titular princess and delivers a lovely performance; Megumi Odaka's performance as the blind girl Akeno is most certainly an audition for her later role as Miki Saegusa in the later Heisei Godzilla entries. The rest of the cast all perform their roles well. It's just a very well-acted film all things considered.
Overall, while Princess from the Moon might be an oversimplified version of the original tale, it doesn't skimp on its storytelling and title; worth it for Toshiro Mifune all things considered.
Both decent and decently strange.
Jeremy_Urquhart25 March 2024
I've unintentionally watched two films from Kon Ichikawa today - Princess from the Moon and An Actor's Revenge. I can't quite say I loved either, but both were interesting (I'd agree with the general consensus regarding the latter being better and more of a classic).
Princess from the Moon had me intrigued because I'd heard it contained at least traces of kaiju, and because it tells the same basic story that 2013's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya did... maybe not as well, or not in a way that has the same impact.
Still, I think Princess from the Moon is decent. It's pretty well-presented, and seeing two well-regarded and prolific actors in lead roles - Toshiro Mifune and Ayako Wakao - definitely added something. It didn't feel essential or like a must-watch, but it was a neat fairytale-type of film with a bit of a sci-fi spin, and that's probably not something most people see every day.
Princess from the Moon had me intrigued because I'd heard it contained at least traces of kaiju, and because it tells the same basic story that 2013's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya did... maybe not as well, or not in a way that has the same impact.
Still, I think Princess from the Moon is decent. It's pretty well-presented, and seeing two well-regarded and prolific actors in lead roles - Toshiro Mifune and Ayako Wakao - definitely added something. It didn't feel essential or like a must-watch, but it was a neat fairytale-type of film with a bit of a sci-fi spin, and that's probably not something most people see every day.
A Wondrous Story From The Writer Of TALES OF THE GENJI
boblipton6 May 2019
This beautifully realized tale of poor man and his wife -- played by Toshiro Mifune and Ayako Wakao -- who have lost their daughter. The following evening a baby appears with a crystal ball, the image of the dead child. Within days, they find a fortune in good and the child has grown into Yasuko Kawaguchi, the most beautiful girl in Japan. Three noblemen come to court her, and she sets them three impossible tasks.
It's derived from a story by Lady Murasaki, who invented the formal novel. It is beautifully shot and performed, although it was clearly made in the 1980s -- the immense spaceship at the end looks like the alien spacecraft from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. The entire movie offers an unworldly tone that suits its fantastic nature perfectly.
Although Lady Murasaki is often credited with inventing the novel, in fact there had been Chinese novels for a couple of centuries. It was, however, a lower-class phenomenon; epic poetry was the medium for longer, more involved tales, and would remain so for centuries.
It's derived from a story by Lady Murasaki, who invented the formal novel. It is beautifully shot and performed, although it was clearly made in the 1980s -- the immense spaceship at the end looks like the alien spacecraft from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. The entire movie offers an unworldly tone that suits its fantastic nature perfectly.
Although Lady Murasaki is often credited with inventing the novel, in fact there had been Chinese novels for a couple of centuries. It was, however, a lower-class phenomenon; epic poetry was the medium for longer, more involved tales, and would remain so for centuries.
Subpar 80's adaptation of a classic japanese folklore tale
TooKakkoiiforYou_32119 September 2021
I went into this because I wanted to watch the penultimate movie where the movie goddess Ayako Wakao acted, and while I don't have complaints about her performance I have SERIOUS problems with all the rest. Most of all, the absolute boredom that permeates this whole movie from start to finish. Yeah, the setting and costumes are accurate, but that doesn't excuse the previously mentioned boredom of all. There are also a lot of logical inconsistencies and character incongruencies allaround (the princess wishing to her beloved to be safe by sending him to a mission with a million percent of possibility - didn't someone tell her the odds?! - to die stealing the crown in that regards) that don't help at all. The final close encounters of the third kind rip-off moment seems also thrown completely at random with no discernible reason other than trying to salvage something not salvageable with a cheap shock twist. And good job on the atrocious special effects, they would make blush crap like Manborg for envy. An absolute inanity of a movie that I don't recommend to anyone to get through. Avoid with no remorse whatsoever.
Pretty exciting.
planktonrules22 February 2013
I assume that "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter" (also called "Princess Kaguya") is a familiar story to many Japanese people. Here in the States, we have, for the most part, never heard of it. Because of this, I am not sure how it compares to other versions of this story. All I know is that I really enjoyed this film with a modern slant.
The original story was written sometime around the 10th century (at least that's what Wikipedia says) though at the end of the film it says it's set around 790AD. Regardless, it's a very fanciful tale that has been updated a bit to suit modern sensibilities. The film begins with a wood cutter (Toshiro Mifune) finding a baby when he's out in the bamboo forest visiting his daughter's grave. However, this is no ordinary baby--it grows VERY fast and is an outer space baby!! And, more importantly, it looks like his dead daughter but with weird blue eyes (in the original story, she had hair that shone like the moon). She soon grows up--at a highly accelerated rate. And, she's so beautiful that all the men seem to want her--even the Emperor! However, she rebuffs all their advances and sends the suitors off on impossibly crazy tasks--and you assume it's just to get them out of her hair! Later, the film becomes a LOT like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", as her actual people from the Moon are coming back to claim her. This is because given modern sensibilities and special effects, the ship looks a lot like those from Spielberg films--such as "Close Encounters" or "E.T."! It's all the more amazing because the story was written so long ago.
The story is very beautifully filmed, acted and the story is pretty exciting. The only negative is that, inexplicably, the film's credits roll with a song from Peter Cetera (from "Chicago")--music that seems odd given that it's a medieval story! However, this is a very minor quibble and the story is lovely from start to finish.
The original story was written sometime around the 10th century (at least that's what Wikipedia says) though at the end of the film it says it's set around 790AD. Regardless, it's a very fanciful tale that has been updated a bit to suit modern sensibilities. The film begins with a wood cutter (Toshiro Mifune) finding a baby when he's out in the bamboo forest visiting his daughter's grave. However, this is no ordinary baby--it grows VERY fast and is an outer space baby!! And, more importantly, it looks like his dead daughter but with weird blue eyes (in the original story, she had hair that shone like the moon). She soon grows up--at a highly accelerated rate. And, she's so beautiful that all the men seem to want her--even the Emperor! However, she rebuffs all their advances and sends the suitors off on impossibly crazy tasks--and you assume it's just to get them out of her hair! Later, the film becomes a LOT like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", as her actual people from the Moon are coming back to claim her. This is because given modern sensibilities and special effects, the ship looks a lot like those from Spielberg films--such as "Close Encounters" or "E.T."! It's all the more amazing because the story was written so long ago.
The story is very beautifully filmed, acted and the story is pretty exciting. The only negative is that, inexplicably, the film's credits roll with a song from Peter Cetera (from "Chicago")--music that seems odd given that it's a medieval story! However, this is a very minor quibble and the story is lovely from start to finish.
Good movie.
jacobjohntaylor116 May 2019
Not a Japanese "B" Sci-fi as the title makes it sound like
rebeccax57 May 2019
If you are all a fan of great Japanese films and culture, see this one.
Based of a famous classic fairy tale, it has top of the line production values.
Beautiful visually and a great cast, it is a hidden gem with a classic, mystical, Japanese feel.
I don't know how I failed to see this sooner, it was on TCM.
Based of a famous classic fairy tale, it has top of the line production values.
Beautiful visually and a great cast, it is a hidden gem with a classic, mystical, Japanese feel.
I don't know how I failed to see this sooner, it was on TCM.
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