Gedo senki (2006)

Director:

Goro Miyazaki

Writers:

Ursula K. Le Guin (novel)
Goro Miyazaki (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

30 July 2010 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Adventure | Fantasy

Plot:

Something bizarre has come over the land. The kingdom is deteriorating. People are beginning to act strange...

Plot Keywords:

Dragon | Asian | Earthsea | Anime | Based On Novel

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Junichi Okada	...	Arren (voice)
Aoi Teshima	...	Theru (voice)
Bunta Sugawara	...	Haitaka (voice)
Yûko Tanaka	...	Cob (voice)
Teruyuki Kagawa	...	Hare (voice)
Jun Fubuki	...	Tenar (voice)
Takashi Naitô	...	Hazia dealer (voice)
Mitsuko Baisho	...	The Mistress (voice)
Yui Natsukawa	...	The Queen (voice)
Kaoru Kobayashi	...	The King (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jeff Bennett	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Susanne Blakeslee	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version) (as Suzanne Blakeslee)
Kathryn Cressida	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version) (as Kat Cressida)
Willem Dafoe	...	Cob (voice: English version)
Timothy Dalton	...	Ged / Sparrowhawk (voice: English version)
Pat Fraley	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Jessica Gee	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version) (as Jessica Gee-George)
Brian George	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Grant George	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Mariska Hargitay	...	Tenar (voice: English version)
Jess Harnell	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Steve Kramer	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Matt Levin	...	Prince Arren (voice: English version)
David Lodge	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Tress MacNeille	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Cheech Marin	...	Hare (voice: English version)
Liam O'Brien	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Tara Platt	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Blaire Restaneo	...	Therru (voice: English version)
Kevin Michael Richardson	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Mark Silverman	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Terrence Stone	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Karen Strassman	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)
Russi Taylor	...	Additional Voices (voice: English version)

Also Known As:

Tales from Earthsea (International: English title)

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX | DTS-ES

Certification:

Hong Kong:I | Italy:T | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Netherlands:12 | UK:PG | Ireland:12A | Singapore:NC-16 | Germany:6 | Finland:K-11 | South Korea:All | Sweden:11 | Australia:M

Company:

Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Trivia:

Initially, "Earthsea" author Ursula K. Le Guin wanted Hayao Miyazaki to direct the film. At the time, however, the elder Miyazaki was tied up working on Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004), and thus could not come on board at the right time. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to make the film, Miyazaki's son Goro Miyazaki stepped up to the plate and decided to make this his first film.

Quotes:

Theru: You think your life belongs to you? Tenar gave me life. That's why i have to live, to give life to someone else. Lebannen... that's the only way we live forever.

Movie Connections:

Version of Earthsea (2004) (TV)

Surprisingly Good Film!

This is a surprisingly good film--and I'm not making the expected follow-on disclaimer, "...for a beginning director." This was a good film by anybody's standard.

Gedo Senki, or Tales from Earthsea, seems to be one episode of a series of tales where Ged (Gedo) is the central character. This 'episode,' then, would be about his encounters with a seventeen-year old prince, named Arren, and a mysterious young girl, named Therru. It's based on Ursula K LeGuin's Earthsea series which I must admit I have not read. I hope the film kept to the spirit of the original story and the author is pleased with the Ghibli presentation.

As the story breaks out, there are strange things happening. People seem to be lost in their purpose and dragon sightings are being reported. After a meeting between the King and his ministers on the topic, Arren, the King's son, assassinates his father and steals his sword. The first thing that hit my mind when watching the opening sequence was the somewhat low resolution background--most uncharacteristic for Ghibli films, which tend to be spectacular in color and detail. The color was there, but the detail looked like a watercolor in some images and paint by numbers in others. The foreground characters were slightly less detailed than what Hayao Miyazaki might have done, but they were not as distracting as the background.

At this point, Ged, who travels under the name Haitaka (the Japanese spelling of the name) encounters Arren in a battle with wolves. Arren seems possessed, and it takes a little time for Ged to calm him down. The voice actor for Ged is Bunta Sugawara, the gravelly-sounding voice of Kamajii in Spirited Away. The voice gives him the air of experience, age, and wisdom. While acted well, Bunta's voice seems a little on the old side for the character on the screen, who appears to be around forty.

The pair goes to a city where Arren chances across Therru as she is trying to escape some nasty soldiers. Therru is a completely fascinating character--and easily the best in the story. She is gentle, but very strong willed. When Arren saves her, she turns on him. They meet later coincidentally and she resumes her hostility toward him. It takes a while for her to warm up to him. When she finally does so, she becomes fiercely loyal to him.

The story develops nicely from there, though I can see it might not be fast enough for those who like lots of action all the time. Tales from Earthsea has some irretrievably evil characters, so the director's father, the great Hayao Miyazaki, would have rewritten the story and likely would have faced the ire of the original author.

Take a bow, Goro; you did good. I give this a nine out of ten rating.