Princess from the Moon

Princess from the Moon
Directed by Kon Ichikawa
Produced by Masaichi Nagata
Written by Kon Ichikawa
Shinya Hidaka
Mitsutoshi Ishigami
Ryûzô Kikushima
Based on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
Starring Toshiro Mifune
Ayako Wakao
Kyōko Kishida
Kiichi Nakai
Music by Kensaku Tanikawa
Cinematography Setsuo Kobayashi
Edited by Chizuko Osada
Production
company
Distributed by Toho
Release dates
 September 14, 1987 (US)
September 26, 1987 (Japan)
Running time
 121 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Princess from the Moon (竹取物語 Taketori monogatari) is a 1987 Japanese film directed by Kon Ichikawa and based on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a centuries-old Japanese fairy tale about a girl from the moon who is discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant.

Background

The film was released as Toho's "55th Anniversary Film" in 1987. Ichikawa noted that he had wanted to make this film for many years, and said his intention was to make it a "film of pure diversion".[1] The film was selected as the opening film of the Tokyo International Film Festival, where it was not well received by critics.[2] Toho promoted the film heavily, and it had the second highest theatrical returns of any film that year, but its financial performance did not equal that of Ichikawa's 1985 release, Harp of Burma.[1]

The Dragon prop used in this film was originally going to play the role of the Loch Ness Monster in a collaborative project between Toho and Hammer Film Productions, famous for their Gothic horror films, but that project was shelved.

Plot

One day wood cutter Taketori-no-Miyatsuko (Toshiro Mifune) discovers a baby girl while he's out in the forest visiting his daughter's grave. Not wanting to leave the infant to die and because of her resemblance to his dead daughter, he takes the child home with him- only to discover that the child grows at an extraordinarily fast rate. Incredibly beautiful, the now grown child Kaya (Yasuko Sawaguchi) attracts the attention of everyone around her, including the land's Emperor. Unwilling to accept their advances, Kaya gives the men a list of increasingly difficult tasks. By the film's end Kaya returns to outer-space by way of a space ship.

Cast

Reception

Awards and nominations

See also

References

  1. 1 2 James Quandt, ed., Kon Ichikawa (Indiana University Press, 2001), ISBN 978-0968296936, pp. 91-92, 388-393. Excerpts available at Google Books.
  2. ↑ Kazuhiro Tateishi, "The Tale of Genji in Postwar Film: Emperor, Aestheticism, and the Erotic", in Haruo Shirane, ed., Envisioning the Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production (Columbia University Press, 2013), ISBN 978-0231513463, p. 326. Excerpts available at Google Books.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Japan Academy Prize Association website

External links

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