Medieval Japan, a land where mankind coexists with the ancient gods of nature. But the world as we know it is about to go belly up, as man grows always greedier and violates the land and its creatures to “civilize” them. The young Ashitaka (voiced by Billy Crudup) is the last of a lost tribe of noble warriors. His village’s fragile peace is disturbed heavily when it’s attacked by a raging boar god who has turned into a demon. Ashitaka defeats it, only to find himself cursed with the seed of hatred. The tribe elders send him off in exile, so he can find out what caused all this and plead to the Forest Spirit to be saved. And so he goes, through the beautiful virgin forest where cute small white ghostly things shake their heads and animals can think and talk. Before long, he discovers what’s pissing off the magical forces of the forest: the Tatara clan living nearby, which is entering the industrial age. Led by Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver), this group of imperial guards, country men, whores and lepers have put together Iron Town. As the name supposes, it’s a modern town which revolves around the extraction and transformation of the land’s huge iron supply.

But to do so, they have to cut down countless trees, and that’s pissing off a lot of the gods, whether under the form of giant boars or apes. Above all is the one they call Princess Mononoke (Claire Danes), a beautiful and brave young girl raised by badass god wolves. She’s determined to stop the humans from destroying the forest, and she’s ready to kill ’em all. When Ashitaka arrives in the middle of this conflict, it’s obvious that things are gonna go horribly wrong. Caught between the two women, Ashitaka tries to have them all live together and preaches non-violence, even though the demon’s curse in him often pushes him to hatred and violence himself. And with a sleazy little man (Billy Bob Thornton) looking to cut off the Forest Spirit’s head to get a hill of gold reward from the Emperor, the final confrontation between the animals and the humans is inevitable…

“Princess Mononoke” is a wonderful film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, often called the Walt Disney of Japanimation. With this film, which broke all box-office records in Japan, he leaves G-rated family cartoons behind to create a harsh, challenging work of art. This is one of the things that make this movie so special, how it uses animation neither for cutesy Disney crap nor for sexploitative manga cyberjunk. Here’s a film as mature, complex and gripping as any live action feature, but which uses animation because it would be impossible to fit Miyazaki’s vision in the restrains of sets and actors and stuff. Let me tell you, you’ve never seen anything like this. The movie looks absolutely wonderful. Mostly drawn by hand, it’s pure eye candy. It also has an interesting story, which blends epic fantasy with the issues of environment without being too preachy. Okay, the film’s message is loud and clear and maybe annoying for some, but the film offers so much more. It’s packed with exhilarating action scenes, surprisingly extended character development and a good dose of humor. I love the characters, which are all fully formed, especially the rocky relationship between Ashitaka and the wolf girl. It’s also hella cool to have animals talk but not to joke like in the Disney films. Here, the animals are flawed like humans, they get angry, they wanna kill the humans for making them miserable. The wolves and the boars have more attitude than most Hollywood actors! “Princess Mononoke” is a film so rich and imaginative that this becomes its only flaw. At 140 minutes or so, the movie sometimes gets a little long. It starts out slowly, and the finale wants so much to be apocalyptic and bigger than life that it can get tiresome. Sometimes too much is like not enough.