Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1987
Princess from the Moon
Buy Princess from the Moon now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
is a 1987 Japanese film directed by Kon Ichikawa. It is based on 'The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter', a 10th-century Japanese fairy tale about a girl from the Moon who is discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant.
Plot
One day bamboo cutter Taketori-no-Miyatsuko (Toshiro Mifune) discovers a baby girl while he is 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
* Toshiro Mifune as Taketori-no-Miyatsuko
* Yasuko Sawaguchi as Kaya, the Princess Kaguya
* Ayako Wakao as Tayoshime
* Koji Ishizaka as Mikado
* Kiichi Nakai as Otomo-no-Dainagon or Minister of the Military
* Megumi Odaka as Akeno
* Katsuo Nakamura as Lise
* Takeshi Kat as Fujiwara-no-Okuni
* Kyko Kishida as Kougo
* Jun Hamamura as Sakanoue-no-Dajo-Daijin
* Koasa Shunpitei as Kuramochi-no-Miko or Minister of Culture
* Takatoshi Takeda as Abe-no-Udaijin or Minister of Finance
* Shir It as Sojo-no-Doson
* Fujio Tokita as Shonin-no-Uda
* Hirokazu Yamaguchi as Metal Carver
* Gen Idemitsu as Mura-no-Choja
* Michiyo Yokoyama as Lise's Wife
* Hirokazu Inoue as Ono-no-Fusamori
* Miho Nakano as Kaya
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".James Quandt, ed., 'Kon Ichikawa' (Indiana University Press, 2001), , pp. 9192, 388393. [https://books.google.com/books?id=3vkVuSGQe-EC&lpg=PA436&dq=%22Taketori%20Monogatari%22%20ichikawa&pg=PA91#v=snippet&q=Princess%20from%20the%20Moon&f=false Excerpts available] at Google Books. The film was selected as the opening film of the Tokyo International Film Festival, where it was not well received by critics.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), , p. 326. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ITRIvGT0SGsC&lpg=PA326&dq=%22Taketori%20Monogatari%22%20ichikawa&pg=PA326#v=onepage&q=%22Taketori%20Monogatari%22%20ichikawa&f=false Excerpts available] at Google Books. 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'.
Reception
Awards and nominations
* 1988, won Japanese Academy Awards Newcomer of the Year for Megumi Odaka[http://www.japan-academy-prize.jp/prizes/?t=11 Japan Academy Prize Association website]* 1988, won Japanese Academy Awards Best Art Direction for Shinobu Muraki
* 1988, won Japanese Academy Awards Special Award for Teruyoshi Nakano, Kenichi Eguchi, Yasuyuki Inoue, Takeshi Miyanishi, Kazunobu Sanpei, Eiichi Asada, Kohei Mikami, and Hiroshi Shirakawa
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Film
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Director for Kon Ichikawa
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Cinematography for Setsuo Kobayashi
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Editing for Chizuko Osada
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Lighting for Kazuo Shimomura
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Music Score for Kensaku Tanikawa
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Sound for Teiichi Saito and Tetsuya Ohashi
* 1988, nominated Japanese Academy Awards Best Supporting Actor for Toshiro Mifune
See also
* 'From the Towers of the Moon', an opera inspired by the film
* 'The Tale of the Princess Kaguya', a 2013 anime film by Studio Ghibli also directly retelling the folk tale
References
Buy Princess from the Moon now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1987