I’m not really the biggest fan of dubbed films, even animated films dubbed into English never feel right. So, to watch Studio Ghibli‘s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in English seems as if something will be lost in the translation, not necessarily the meaning and certainly not the story, but the mood and tone can get disrupted. Yes, in the case of Kaguya a cast that includes the voices of Chloe Grace Moretz, James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Lucy Liu, Beau Bridges, Daniel Dae Kim, James Marsden, Oliver Platt, John Cho, George Segal, Dean Cain and Darren Criss has been assembled so it isn’t as if director Isao Takahata‘s (Grave of the Fireflies) film is getting a second-rate treatment, but it nevertheless seems “wrong” to me.
That said, here is the official domestic trailer for the upcoming release of the film that just won the Fantastic Fest Audience Award. Here’s the plot:
Legendary Studio Ghibli cofounder Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, Pom Poko) revisits Japan’s most famous folktale in this gorgeous, hand-drawn masterwork, decades in the making. Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter (Caan) and his wife (Steenburgen), a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady (Moretz). The mysterious young princess enthralls all who encounter her – but ultimately she must confront her fate, the punishment for her crime.
From the studio that brought you Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and The Wind Rises comes a powerful and sweeping epic that redefines the limits of animated storytelling and marks a triumphant highpoint within an extraordinary career in filmmaking for director Isao Takahata.
GKIDs is distributing this one with a planned October 17 release date. Watch the official U.S. trailer below.
